Snow season 's now #phenology

It's not the Halloween Blizzard of 1991, but 'twill do, 'twill do. We've adjusted our travel plans to the North Country in hope that roads will be plowed clear tomorrow. We much prefer a gentler easing into snow season, ideally sometime during the first week of December. Most years around here, Winter greatly anticipates our readiness and willingness to enjoy The Quiet Season. On the other hand, the Daughter Person becomes very anxious if we haven't had some amount of snowfall by early December, for fear that we might miss a white Christmas. Where we live, the odds are 85% to 90% that Christmas will be white.

first snowfall, mid Autumn

Photo by J. Harrington

Before the precipitation started, we had dug up and pot-planted some rosemary and some thyme. Seeds, several years old, we once received as a kitchen herb garden "pet" all developed mold/fungus after we planted them a few weeks ago, so they became trash. We now have basil, rosemary and thyme growing on South and West facing windowsills. (If we add some parsley and sage might Simon and Garfunkel magically appear at our door?)

Yesterday we picked up our first shares box from our Winter Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] membership. Foxtail Farm is a little bit down the road from the barn in the picture below. Western Wisconsin is a very pretty part of the world, as is the rest of the St. Croix River watershed, and we probably don't write often enough about how grateful we are to live in this area, even though it subjects us to "premature" snowfalls.

Standing Cedars Barn

Photo by J. Harrington

We were almost certain that, several times yesterday and the day before, we saw a few bluebirds still hanging around. Today, the yard is full of juncos and snow. The adjustment from bluebirds to snowbirds within a single day is disconcerting, to put it mildly. But, to listen to some, there's no proof that this sudden, volatile change of seasons and the arrival of unseasonable snow amounts has anything to do with global warming. What can snow have to do with warming? Remember Senator Inhofe's snowball? The fact that climate scientists told us to anticipate more volatile and intense storms as climate change progresses, and we've had a number of volatile, intense storms the past few months is just a coincidence, right? Right? RIGHT? Yah, right!

                     First Snow, Kerhonkson

By Diane di Prima

for Alan

This, then, is the gift the world has given me

(you have given me)

softly the snow

cupped in hollows

lying on the surface of the pond

matching my long white candles

which stand at the window

which will burn at dusk while the snow

fills up our valley

this hollow

no friend will wander down

no one arriving brown from Mexico

from the sunfields of California, bearing pot

they are scattered now, dead or silent

or blasted to madness

by the howling brightness of our once common vision

and this gift of yours—

white silence filling the contours of my life.

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