Snow-Bound

One of my favorite poets is John Greenleaf Whittier.  I first read one of his works, Snow-Bound, as a teenager studying in the frosty northern realm of mid-Maine.  Since that first reading, it has always been one of my favorites.

It’s a lyrical, auto-biographical depiction of his childhood and later recollections upon his life.  Below are a few excerpts wherein Whittier describes a blizzard that occurred in the 1800’s while he was still a farm boy.

I have taken the liberty to select just a few stanzas and parts thereof, and reordered them for your reading.  Enjoy.

The sun that brief December day

Rose cheerless over hills of gray,

And, darkly circled, gave at noon

A sadder light than waning moon.

Out in the Cold

This morning, a herd of hungry deer forages for food
 along Bridgewater’s Washington Valley.
(Credit/Bergeron Images)

Without the well-timed intervention of Mother Nature, this post might have been about the internecine goings-on in New Jersey politics. 

Fortuitously, a pleasant mid-morning event occurred which prompted a reversal of topics.

I was in the kitchen and had just begun to peel a large rutabaga while listening to classical music.  Its source was Music Choice TV emanating from the south-facing living room, and I decided to pause and to walk over to adjust the volume.

From the front windows, I spotted a herd of alert deer moving quickly from one neighbor’s lot to the other.  I snatched the Nikon which I always keep nearby, and started to snap photos of those beautiful, shrub-devouring residents of Central Jersey.

Nature’s Own Icy Christmas Tree

A Wintry Freeze. (Credit/Dick Bergeron)

After the last snow storm which showered the Bridgewater area with about 5 inches of snow less than a week ago, I looked out of the dining room window.

There, I discovered that ice had decorated the entirety of the white pine that stands at the back corner of the house.

Overnight, the tree’s soft branches stood drooping in a suspension of pine needles individually frozen in a thick coating of ice, yet one not heavy enough to cause the boughs to break and fall to the ground.

Individually transformed into icicles, pine needles sported a drop of frozen water hanging from their tips.

All by itself, nature’s wintry mix had created a work of beauty.

Thanks for reading.  Be safe in the snowstorm now upon us.

(Click on the image for an enhanced view.)

The Storms that Won’t Let Up

Ice coats utility lines in Bridgewater (Photo by Dick Bergeron)

My sister-in-law sent an e-mail from Cape Coral, Florida, and reminded us that it was around 80 pleasant, sunny degrees down in the Sunshine State.

We could use some of that heat radiating from the warm sunshine – even a little bit of it, if only for about eight hours or so – simply to melt the accumulation of snow and ice that is plaguing us in Bridgewater.

I thought it was not supposed to happen here in New Jersey.  OK, maybe once in a while, but not a major storm – one after the other.  That was appropriate when we lived on the shores of Lake Ontario across from Canada, or in New England – but here in the Garden State?

Black Ice

A stealth coating of ice covers our driveway.

It’s worse than deep snow and it’s far more treacherous.  On the roadways, you won’t see it until it’s too late.  But this time, we’ve all been alerted by all of the weather services to expect the worse in the form of ice, and it’s already here.

This afternoon, just before dusk at 4:52, I shot this close-up of a section of my driveway from a safe position on the front entrance, to show just how slick and slippery black ice can be. 

The only way that I felt confident in walking down the slope of the driveway to get the mail and to pick up the empty trash cans was to use my pair of rubberized shoes whose bottoms, thanks to a gift from Priscille a couple of years ago, are outfitted with a pair of “Yaktraks.”

This neat little invention fits easily under a pair of shoes and will give you the traction of a mountain goat.  If you are interested, Amazon carries different models.  So does Plow & Hearth.  The one I wear retails for $27.

Watch yourself out there for the next couple of days – it’s not fit for human or beast!