It seems that I am the most grateful when I am perched on the edge of a disaster. I saw the tipping point yesterday.
I am on the other side now. Listening to wind howl. Watching snow that cannot hit the ground. Seeing dancing trees that only yesterday at three o’clock were white with heavy ice.
A rain came at four and washed the ice off. The crashing down of the ice layer went on for hours. The trees were free again.
Ice-free trees can bend, not break.
That is the lesson here. Nature is made to bend. Forces may make the trees sway and bend, but but breakage only occurs to unyielding things.
If you are in ice right now. There is one thing to watch. The posture of the evergreens. These trees have evolved through ice and snow. They are designed to bend downward instead of breaking. Right now I am surrounded by evergreen trees covered in ice. They are holding up well. When the load starts to be too much, the limbs will bend down and rest on the limbs below. They will start to look like a closing umbrella.
Trimmed bottom limbs
If you trimmed off the bottom limbs, there will not be lower support and the whole system may collapse. I have a trimmed evergreen out one window and an untrimmed tree out from another.
Untrimmed lower limbs.
These two trees will tell me when/if the ice is too heavy to hold. Once the cracking starts, other types of trees are in danger also.
When this collapsing starts, the probability that you will lose power increases greatly because limbs and trees will come down.
We are also expecting wind later. Wind is not a friend to ice-covered trees. If the temps get really low, sap will freeze and trees will explode.
This is my first winter on the mountain, so everything is a first for me. The wind woke me up this morning. I looked out the back window to see snow tornadoes swirling where the wind met the corner between the house and the garage.
Circles mean things to me. They are a sign that I pay attention to. I know these swirls are due to the blowing snow, the wind direction and the configuration of the corner. I also know that natural forces create supernatural events.
See partial snow circles left by the swirls.
I stood mesmerized by the swirls. I remembered back to teaching about breaking waves with water in a fish tank and how the water swirled back when it hit the edge. I thought about how wave swells are really circles under the sea. Nature does not have corners nor deadends. Wind and water find their way out, over or through eventually.
I am in a time-circle now. Here on the mountain circling through the past of my family, again and again. Trying to find my way through to a present where all the pieces fit together.
Now, it is actually snowing. The air is white and fiercely dynamic. I am in the midst of a giant snow swirl.
I have watched the snow in silence all morning. I am truly grateful for this period of quiet peace. I have needed to concentrate on a project I have been working on.
The view from my desk.
No, it is not decorating for the holidays or decoupaging Christmas ornaments. That would be fun. I will hold off on glitter and glue until after 5:00PM.
I am rewriting my story. Not just a chapter, the whole thing. Well almost all of it. I am culling what was myth and wishful thinking to see what is left.
This has not been an easy thing to do. If I did not feel that it was necessary, I would not be doing it. I am tackling one past event at a time and looking at it from all sides. We usually do not look at things from perspectives other than our own, especially when we are young.
Piling up quietly.
This has been hard work and has required my actually drawing scenarios and stick people and writing out what each person might have been thinking. It usually gives me a headache, but is very enlightening so I will keep at it until I get more clarification.
Watching the snow in silence is like staring into a fish tank. It somehow clears my mind like rice clears the palate.
Fluffy snow slowly falling is so soothing that it feels like balm for my troubled mind as I brave things I have refused to face.
This snow is like an angel. Nature’s way of quieting the setting and softening everything. Muting the noises and covering the colors so that things are monochromatic and muffled.
I did not say I would be making a snow angel nor snowman. My neighbor did bring me some snow cream.
I feel gratitude to my parents for leaving my sister and me this haven. It has brought me so much peace and comfort.
The results of this work are for a book that I have been working on for a long time. There have been surprises. I am sure there will be more. Bring it!
There are tiny tracks everywhere after a fine dusting of snow.
This snow is so light and fine it moves like powdered sugar.
A white dusting is perfect for tiny tracks that would not show up in big snows.
My favorite spot for tiny tracks is under bushes. That’s where the small and skittish roam.
I usually carry a penny for scale, but did not have one in my bathrobe.
I know these three were probably not under the bush at the same time, but I like thinking about three tiny creatures hanging out under a bush telling about how they pass their time when it is cold.
So I imagine a little bird with the young chipmunk meeting a mouse for a chat.
floweralley 