SNOW!

It started sometime after midnight and is still coming down, though not quite so hard. Quack, quack; waddle-waddle.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

Snow and Ice

For all the hoopla from the weather watchers, the snow we had yesterday didn't amount to very much, at least not here. Hanover received about 4.5 to 5 inches of the fluffy stuff, though it did drift deeper than that around the carport and the old chicken coop in the back yard.
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From the looks of it coming down yesterday morning, I thought we might be in for one of our area's infamous late winter snows, especially since we've had so little precipitation this winter, to date. The usual pattern is that when we've had a relatively dry (rain or snow) winter in November through February, then come March, especially mid-March, we get a whopper of a snowfall. Now, 'whopper' is relative, mind you. What constitutes a whopper of a snowfall here in south-central Pennsylvania is but a dusting - think powdered sugar on a doughnut - for other parts of the state.
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If we do receive snow in March, it is usually in the range of 18-to-30 inches. Such a snowfall is cause for great celebration with kids of all ages in the neighborhood. No school! Maybe not for two days! Snow forts and snowball fights! Building snowmen and snow slides in the backyards! Yippee!! Snow!
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One year, one with snow in the deeper range, we had snow-mobilers riding over our front lawn and sidewalk. Our lawn (now, that's an exaggeration in itself, but I digress) slopes down to the alley surface in about a foot-and-a-half drop, which, when padded with nearly 30 inches of snow, must make for a rather exciting ride. Exciting for them, annoying as hell for me. So it goes.
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I thought for sure that yesterday morning's blizzard-like snow was going to accumulate into one of the whoppers, but it didn't. More's the pity. I like snuggling into my warm house, making hot chocolate, reading one of those hundreds of books I keep meaning to get to, listening to the muffled sounds of traffic outside and the squeals of delight from the outrageously happy kids.
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A couple of years ago, I stepped out into a fantasy land of ice crystals covering everything exposed to the air. Something I had never heard of before had passed through the neighborhood during the night - an ice-fog! Although the sun was up and shining for all it was worth, the atmosphere was so thick, seemed I should be able to swipe my hand through it, like a scoop through ice cream, and gather together a ball of ice. The sunlight was refracted into thousands - millions! - of shards of rainbow. It reminded me of looking through a crystal fob from my grandmother's coal oil lamp when I was a child. Magical - just pure magic!

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At the gate, along the fencing beneath a serviceberry tree, there grows an autumn clematis. It dies off and drops its leaves at the first hard frost of late fall. The ice fog settled along the naked vines, leaving behind ice brambles. I was fortunate to capture the shot (above) of them, for they melted like cotton candy on a tongue as soon as sunlight broke through the fog and touched the vines.

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This is only the beginning of March. Still plenty of time for a real whopper to hit us!

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore