Thursday, January 03, 2008

Let It Snow

Swimming through the snow…


This is my backyard under all the snow we’ve had since November, including the heavy snowfall on January 1st. It is a splendid sunny day, at -24 deg C (-11.2 deg F). Just beautiful! – and I’m not ironical at all when I say this. The air’s harsh caress on my lungs feels wonderful, even as my nose and fingertips are freezing. I would be perfectly content if I weren’t worrying about the poor squirrels and the little birds…


I imagine seeing a whole geological history in the two-foot wall of snow at the edge of my swimming pool. I daydream of long cylinders with ice samples from the Arctic, there where meteorites or maybe other …objects are sleeping under the weight of snow and time. Haven’t Agents Mulder and Scully once found something rather interesting in one of them?...

21 comments:

Akasha Savage. said...

Wow...your photos look wonderful! I can feel that icy crispness from here. I love the snow, but we hardly ever get anything worth mentioning over here in grey damp ole England. Snow was forecast for today, but what have we got? Rain!

S. Kearney said...

Where's the snowman, with all that snow? Lovely to have so much. :-)

Unknown said...

I wish we had -24 Celsius. We had something like that in December 1997.

Hoodie said...

Kudos to you for such a positive response to such chilling weather. I will fully attest to beauty of the photos, but -11! C'mon. There's nothing beautiful in that to me. (It's -2 here, so I shall try to implement some of your attitude toward the, what was it? "Harsh Caress.")

Steve H said...

love the snow but not sure that i could handle those temps!

Taffiny said...

What a wonderful attitude you have. I wish I shared it. It is 24 degrees here, way too cold for me. Fine when inside looking out a window, but out in it, ugh, AAHHH! If it tries to put me in its harsh caress, I shall kick it in the snowballs and run. (back indoors where I belong).

Wow it must really stay cold there, we have had snow, and ice, but then it all melts away, so we aren't getting storm upon storm. It does look really cool, I mean neat, all that deep beautiful snow. And the contrast of seeing it cover the pool, adds to the feeling of levels, and time passing.

Do you feed the little creatures? I always mean to, but usually forget.

Anonymous said...

Great pictures! I have been feeling cold dealing with temperatures in the low to mid teens (Fahrenheit), but reading what you are having makes me feel like a wimp!

Our snow all melted too!

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Great pictures!! Love looking at pictures of snow, just as long as I don't have to be in it myself!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. What a lovely back yard you have. Now get busy--build that snowman.

Bernita said...

The shadows of the fence and gate are particularly elegant.

Aine said...

I love the wonderland that deep snow creates. Everything gets distorted, and it's fantastically weird when there is a thick coating of ice on top that allows you to walk on the surface. Stepping over the six exposed inches of a 3-foot fence, or finding yourself at eye level with your roof makes me feel like Alice!

Now if only Old Man Winter would blow some of that my way!

Anonymous said...

I hope digging out hasn't been too grueling.

The virgin snow is so beautiful.

Chris Eldin said...

Stunning! I love the snow, and these photos are gorgeous. My favorite is the last one.

Unknown said...

Wow! That is amazing! The images are stunning and I can just imagine both the silence that comes with snow and the sounds of footsteps scrunching through it!

Vesper said...

Thank you, Akasha! Winter would be dull and its length hard to endure without snow, although sometimes it really seems to be too much...

The snowman, Seamus? Probably buried in the snow... :-)

I knew you'd say that, Ropi! :-) We sometimes have even lower temperatures, not to mention the windchill factor. You have to come to Canada. :-)

Thanks, Hoodie, you've got to stay positive, or else... :-)

Yes, Hotwire, they are a bit extreme. Not much you can do outside on these temperatures! :-)

I used to feed them, Taffiny, but I haven't done it this winter yet, because they get used to it and then, in spring, they come and destroy all my flowers.

Some of our snow might melt these days, Paul - they're forecasting 50 deg F for Monday! :-)

Thanks, Ello, I hope you don't have to be in it! :-)

Thank you, Wayne, it's even nicer in summer... :-)

What a nice way of looking at this, Bernita...

Weird indeed, Aine, I was thinking of the same thing when I was walking two feet above my veranda... :-) I hope some of this snow will come your way...

Jason, luckily we have a contractor for the driveway; for the rest - a pleasant workout. :-)

I'm glad you liked the photos, Church Lady!

Vanilla, thank you! Yes, the silence and the sound of footsteps in a snow-covered forest... (sigh)

SzélsőFa said...

We used to have -10 in the past days, but now the temp. has risen to -3 and it rains.
That is one bloody weather. Everything even snow's covered in ice.

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Travis Erwin said...

Like you I find all that snow beautiful. We get some snow here in the Texas Panhandle but it usually melts within a few days.

Jon M said...

I want snow!I want snow!I want snow!I want snow!I want snow!I want snow!I want snow!

Sorry tantrum over. I want snow! oops no it wasn't!

I WANT SNOW!!!
We don't get it much in the temperate West of England...just drizzle.
I want snow!

Mediterranean Views said...

Hi Vesper, It reminds me of those rare crippling snow storms that closed schools for days in my childhood in Virginia, and one I was able to share with my Spanish husband who had never seen so much snow and my daughters 5 and 8 at the time, while at my Mom's for x-mas and New Years. That was a god year! The cripsness, the silence, the red cardinals against the white, then the crunching and laughter of snow play...thanks for sending me down memory lane!

Vesper said...

Szelsofa, that's dangerous weather. We've had bad experiences with that here.

I'm glad you like it, Travis. Even though you've mentioned it before, I still find it somehow hard to imagine that you get snow in Texas... :-)

Oh, Jon, if I could I would send some your way... :-)

Beautiful, Amy... the red cardinals against the snow....
We've had two of those crippling storms already!