Just one of those days...

The beauty of today's snowfall has been tempered because it fell not only on woods and fields and waters, but also on roads and driveways and parking lots. It’s a heavy, wet mess to clean up. We decided to start early, after the power went out for a second time and the phone outage did in our internet access. I suspect that utilities aren’t paying enough attention to hardening the grid and making the local distribution system less vulnerable to what appears to be an increase in the number of heavy, clingy snowfalls we’re getting as the climate breakdown continues. Generating clean power with fusion won’t help much if it can’t be delivered.

A 7 am Zoom meeting I was scheduled to present at this morning was rescheduled because the convener just came down with COVID. The reschedule would have been necessary anyhow since our power and internet were out. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has again raised interest rates and the Dow Jones has shown its displeasure by dropping close to 900 points by early afternoon.

Tomorrow is trash and recycling pickup day but I don’t dare to put the cans out by the road until after the township plow comes by. The plow driver is sometimes a bit exuberant even with a powdery snow. With this heavy stuff our cans could end up in the next county over if they’re at all close to being in the way.

Here is the good news:

snow covered trees and fields are pretty


Photo by J. Harrington



• The trees and fields really are pretty, even on another cloudy day.
• I haven’t yet eaten all the Christmas cookies
• Once again I am reading and trying to follow a wabi sabi outlook based on

Nothing lasts forever 

Nothing is perfect

Nothing is ever finished

Also, I just rediscovered a book on poetry that I put aside a couple of years ago. It's going near the top of next year's reading list. It’s not unreasonable to think that this will be the last messy snow storm until next March. 

Removing the Dross

By Thomas R. Moore

After snowstorms my father

shoveled the driveway where it lay

open to a sweep of wind across

a neighbor’s field, where the snow

drifted half way down to the paved

road, before snow-blowers, before

pick-ups cruised the streets with

THE BOSS lettered on red plows.

He heated the flat shovel

in the woodstove till the blade

steamed, like Vulcan at his furnace

removing the dross, then rubbed

a hissing candle on the steel

so the snow would slide unchecked

as he made each toss. He marked

blocks with the waxed blade, lifted

and tossed, lifted and tossed again,

squaring off against the snow.

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