Giants in The Earth Winter!

Evidence of Abundance!  White, sparkly abundance, that is.

We are having a Giants in The Earth Winter.  Rolvaag wrote my favorite book.

A Pioneer decides he can make one last trip to town for supplies before winter sets in.
He sets out, walking, as there are no indications of severe weather.
It begins to snow on his way home. This snow quickly becomes an intense blizzard!
He struggles on!  He cannot see, yet he manages to go directly towards the remote cabin where his wife is.  He dies in a snowbank. Later in the spring he is found, not far from his door!


This is the type of Blizzard we had this week in the Hilltowns!
I drove home into the hills with wet snow pelting into the headlights.
These flakes  had to be 1/4 to 1/2 inch, each!

The real fun was in the anticipation of this storm.  Some sources simply said snow starting Wednesday afternoon, continuing into Thursday.  Some sources said 6 to 12 inches.  Some said 4 to 6 inches, and yet others said 12 to 16 inches would come.  We did not know what to expect!

We did get app. 8 inches of heavy, wet snow! All on top of the 2 1/2 to 3 feet of white from recent storms. It looks like the interior of a mansion when the family goes away.  White sheets are pulled over the furniture!

                                   Much like in this photo of one of the four foot high stone walls.


Yet all this is nothing compared to a story I was told when I lived in Mt. Storm, West Virginia.

Drift laying against the Carriage House

A.B. Cosner, one of the influential old-timers, told me of a winter when the snow was so high, they dug a tunnel through it to cross the road.  He showed me a picture on the wall of the Restaurant.  This was no simple tunnel!  Adults were standing straight up in it, and it was wide enough for several people!

An evening before one of our snow storms.

Wind whirls wildly over the winter

Wind whirls wildly over the white world.

Moonlight makes magic of the mountain meadow.

She comes.

Thirst tempts her through the thorny thicket.

Brook bounds boldly past bright birches.

She comes.

Picks her path on padded paws,

past pine trees.

Eyes, ears alert to evenings activities.

She comes.
Rounds the rocks, head raised.
Drinks deeply of dark waters, defying danger.

They come.
Beyond the brook, beckoning to each other.
Stand in shady snow, searching the serene scene.

She watches.
Tilting their tawny necks, long tongues lap racing water.
A rough cough, then retreat from the raging river.

They go.
they wend west, white tails down.
Puncturing snow with pointed hoofs.

She goes.
Wind whips wisps of white powder into punctured snow.

Delia Nash, 2010

Pure white caresses contours

I was reading the latest post at 'A Cottage in The Woods'. she writes of her love for the winter white.

I, too am not tired of the winter beauty.

The snow smooths out the contours of the land, and waters. The pristine white of it provides more contrast to the evergreens. Shadows are more visible. It sparkles.

For a writer, or a painter, the new sheet of paper, or the white of the new canvas is exciting! Each time I look at the winter landscape, I grow excited by the unspoiled appearance of it, the possibilities of the life that can happen on it.

It is as if the snow caresses the land, protecting it through the cold temperatures.
The winter world glows with pureness!

Stella plays!

Once, only, in my childhood did I witness my mother, Stella at play!
Stella was stern, Stella was sad.
I had often been told that Stella had been a figure skater, though it was difficult for me to believe this.

She had taken us up to the Square Piece to skate.

The Square Piece was a few miles above the Mill Dam, and then there was still a walk to the apartment from there.
The current flowed through the middle of Square Piece, from the Red Dam on to the Mill Dam, and then on through the basement level of one of the Mill Buildings! I know because when my father had been night watchman there, I would bring his supper pail to him, and I saw this!

It was the year that my brothers' were making sailboats out of their sleds. They had been gliding around on the ice for hours! I had been fallling on the ice for hours!

When we were all sufficiently wet and frozen, Stella declared it was time to go home.

To our surprise, she unbuttoned her long wool coat, held the sides of the coat out,and made a sail out of herself! She sailed in front of us all the way to the Mill dam, right down the middle over the current! As she moved along, the ice at the shore edges BOOMED! and BOOMED, and KA-BOOMED!

We followed along after her, in shock and in fear that the ice would crack open under us. It was a quick trip to the Dam!

It must have been quite a sight for the deer!

Paul was a Fisherman

Paul was a Fisherman. No! Not that Paul! My DA, Paul Nash.

Paul had a broken back, one kidney, and 6 to feed. He did what he could.
He fished, we fished. We all contributed to the family food supply.

Paul took a long length of thick rubber band. At several spots he had attached groups of hooks.
A rock at the far end, and bait onto each hook. He would throw the rock far out into Lake Monomonac. After a while, he would haul in the band, and we kids would scramble to unhook all the fish. I always found this to be amazing!

We kids would be there with our sticks and line and hooks and bait. Bait gleaned off the yard at home early that morning, usually! Perch, Pickerel, Trout, hornpout, sunfish! Young Harry, I think, took to the fishing best.

Later in my childhood, we had a rowboat, and a lot at the Square Piece below the red dam.
Usually two of us would take the boat out to fish.

That same lot became a gathering place in winter for the ice fisherman. We would have a bonfire, and all would gather there. We Nash kids would be out skating on Square Piece, keeping watch on the flags from the holes cut into the ice by all these ice fishermen. We would either yell, or skate fast back to the group to alert the right person! Often, we had our own holes to tend.

When we would arrive back home, our wet socks and mittens were draped over all the shelves on the wood stove that we cooked with and heated the apartment with. The old black thing with the removable burner covers, the deep soup belly, and the wonderful bread oven. My mother made wonderful brown bread in there! I miss that stove, and all the colors of winter upon it!