We just had the first major snow of the season. Schools were let out early, or cancelled altogether. When we first moved here in 2003, schools rarely closed for snow. Now they do so with a regularity similar to the schools of St. Louis, where we moved from. We are becoming a less snow-tough people, but that is a topic for another time.
As I shoveled the porch and front steps I thought of the things I had not called to mind since last winter.
How different the weight of snow can be from one storm to the next. You can tell without picking up a shovel, just by stepping on it. At times it is like shoveling feathers, other times like shoveling lasagna.
What wind does. Five inches of snow usually means 18 inches in the vortex by the shed and an inch in parts of the front yard.
What sun does. The fact a sunny day can melt snow and ice when the air temp is in the teens, is one of those pleasant little surprises of nature.
The beauty of hoarfrost, diamond dust and snowdogs.
The camaraderie of neighbors as we dig out. We wake up on a Saturday morning all facing the same problem, getting this stuff off the driveway, navigating the snowbanks left by the city plows.
That squirrels may attempt to seek shelter somewhere in my house. A nook, a crease, a forgotten opening. The scratching sound in a wall is never good news, and was heard around 11pm last night for the first time in a few years.
The beauty of this land when it is only two colors, White and shades of brown.
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