An April Snow

Any one for a backyard bar-b-que? The grill is on the right.

This photo was taken yesterday - and today it is still snowing. The photo is of an abandoned bird house that is attached to one of our Ponderosa pine trees. Believe me, it looks better in the snow. So my husband had to get to work yesterday, but they let him go home early. However the freeway was closed because of major accidents that blocked the road. So he took an alternate route, that required he drive through our town, where the snowplow had not yet visited. This meant that, just five or six blocks from home, he got stuck. Though he has 4-wheel drive, he has a Subaru and the clearence under the car is hardly high enough to drive through a foot or more of snow. He did not want to leave the car there, as it was on a main street and he thought someone might slide into it and hit it. I could not get to him since our driveway, which is like Mt. Everest when it snows, was impossible for me and my rear wheel drive station wagon - needed for harp transport or I'd trade in for something more....sexy? So my husband called upon our long suffering neighbor who has a truck and an SUV (and a camper, and and guns and stuff, you get the idea). He rescued him with a rope hitch to pull my husband's subaru out of the ditch that it slid into. Now, on the way home, turning onto our street, his car slid into another ditch. This time another neighbbor was passing by and he has a snow plow attachment on the front of his pickup. Man these are the sort of neighbors to have! So he also had a hitch which he used to pull my husband out. "Who was that masked man?"

End of story, except it is STILL snowing and my husband went to do some errands. Hope he makes it back safely.

A snowy saturday

Ahhh. We have been transformed again. Snow on Friday night is always welcome. It means laying in bed most of Saturday morning. After all, there is nowhere to go, no errands and no work. Even if we had to get somewhere, we could not. There is a 4-foot drift in the street in front of our house! It's always entertaining to see who is going to venture out on the street, other than the local huskey who loves the freedom of no cars. The 4-foot drift is bad enough, but it hides a hidden danger to anyone driving down our street. We have deep ditches, instead of sidewalks, on both sides of the street. When snow is drifted on top of the ditches, an unsuspecting driver can go right into one. It's not too dangerous - how fast can one be driving, after all. Once the city snow plow did this and it took a huge truck to pull it out - an all day operation and quite ironic! Now we figure, if there was a true emergency someone would come to the door, call the police, or at least AAA. It's pretty dumb to drive down a street with 4 foot snow drifts! Maybe we've gotten callous living here.

So each snowy morning there is often the sound of shovels and general mayhem. That's how it was this morning. My husband used to run out to help, but now we've learned. Now we just comment to each other, sleepily, "oh, somebody's stuck" and nestle further into our warm and cozy Saturday bed. Later we will use our electric snow blower and join the block-party brigade. We never rely on the snowplow, but take clearing our street into our own hands. What a sight they make: four or five old geezers pushing a row of snow blowers down the street! Snow shooting high in huge clouds, motors roaring. I don't know, I almost wish we could stay snowed-in, what is that important anyway?

Snow again.

Finally the sky releases her pent up moisture. Snow like clouds of feathers float down, each flake discernible as an ephemeral entity. Pillowing white walls appear on rails and roofs; settle in white tracks where cars have gone; wrap windows in heavy quilts. Tree limbs get flocked in trace work, icy on the bare budding branches, thick as fox fur on the evergreens. A Huskey bounds in pure glee through the transformed landscape, joy evident in every stretching stride, each whirl and twist of his white and grey coat, each shake of his happy head. Home. He knows the smell of snow, the wet embrace of its fingers, the dark gloom of northern night descending. This is what he was bred and born for. The cold blast in his face, the cool dampness on his flanks, muscles pulling with the arctic blood of his ancestors driving him on. Passion and love for life. To be reborn on such a day!

I just wrote this in my journal, inspired by the scene out of my window this evening. The dog's joy was contagious.