Snow Enrobed

Snow Enrobed Birdbath

 We're in the middle of a major snow event in Longview today.  Probably lasting through Friday.

I took these pictures from the front porch at dusk.  I couldn't step off the strip protected by the roof overhang as I was not wearing shoes with traction.

This might not look major to folks east of the Rockies but for Longview it's fairly uncommon to get more than a dusting to an inch or two.  And that usually melts off by noon.

At 6pm this evening the birdbath had a 5 inch cap of snow.

Snow Enrobed Neighborhood

Snow Enrobed Street

 With my sister out of town today the driveway remained pristine.

She called shortly after I took these pics to say she will be spending the night in Chehalis, less than twenty miles north of us, because the snow there was deeper and the temps were dropping into the teens already.

Snow Enrobed Hedge

 This is the hedge I see out the window from my workstation.  Those tall evergreens are straight across from me so I spent the afternoon watching them get their frosting, shake it off and get it back again, and the laurel hedge loose it leafy look and the neighbor's roof go white as a wedding cake.

Snow Enrobed Japanese Ornamental

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Yesterday's Snow

If you slept in you probably missed it for by noon it was all but gone. i got these pics shortly after dawn by standing on the back porch in my slippers. I'd been doing laundry all night and about an hour earlier had spotted the snow on the neighbor's car when their security light popped on while I was at the kitchen sink. So I got my camera ready and waited for dawn.

It's just as well it is gone and the winter storm has moved past us. We've got family on the roads all weekend and the passes north and south of here are no fun to drive in the snow. Plus snow events make the logistics of Ed's job on the shipping dock extra hard what with trucks delayed and snow in the shipping yard. So as much as I love snow and want to see it, I feel guilty for wishing for it

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Sunday Serenity #111

Last Thursday in my post Wallow Your Bliss I confessed how much I love snow even though I know what a hassle it is for most people--those who have lives. It was on my mind because weather reports were predicting a possibility of more snow for SW Washingtion which had been hit by that major snow storm just before Christmas. The same snow storm that delayed my trip from Southern Oregon for ten days. By the time I got here the snow was gone.

Anyway, the predicted snow did not arrive this week. So I decided to collect some images of snow for my Sunday Serenity post to illustrate what I love about snow. Which is essentially what it is about it that induces feelings of joy and serenity and hope in me. While I was uploading the images to this post, my sister looked out the window and said, "Hey, it's snowing." And then mentioned that she forgot to tell me that I'd missed the dusting on the ground this morning that had melted before I woke up.

I think I may have found a clue as to where my love of snow came from. The image at the head of this post of the lone wolf on a snowy hillside hung on the wall at my Grandparents. A print, not the original painting of course. When I came across it on art.com a little while ago, an infusion of 'warm fuzzy' overcame me. Hmmm.

All the pictures are linked to the page I found them. All but two are from art.com. The other two are from freefoto.com.












The above is a picture of Multnomah waterfall on the Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland, Oregon, not forty miles from where I sit. Our family and our Church youth groups made a number of visits to it in Spring and Summer throughout my childhood. I never saw it like this. Tho in November 1978 a couple weeks before our wedding, Ed and I went there to make the climb to the top only to find the bridge and the path leading up from it coated with ice. The waterfall itself was an ice sculpture with very little falling water visible.

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Wallow Your Bliss

moar funny pictures
They're saying SW Washingtion has a chance for more snow in the next day or so. I know that most western Washingtonians have had their fill of snow for one winter. I know that the inconvenience, even misery, it inflicts on so many makes it something I shouldn't wish for. Yet. I find myself wistfully hoping for it to snow. I missed all the hullabaloo around the pre Xmas snow storms here. In fact my trip was delayed over ten days due to the snow between here and southern Oregon and it was all but gone by the time I got here. It did snow once after my arrival but not for long and after dark and it had melted by the time I woke up the next morning. I don't understand why but falling snow is a source of joy for me. And snow-covered ground, trees, houses, streets, sidewalks, etc. At least for the first hours after a snowfall before foot and auto traffic plow it to grey slush. There is just something about it that calls to me.

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Fun In the Sn

Bet you thought I left the 'u' out.

No. I left off the 'ow'.



We had a lot of snow early this week. 9 inches on Sunday. It all melted by Thursday but we continue to get a mix of rain and snow that doesn't stick for more than a few hours if at all.

I have a funny story to tell on myself.

Ed and I went for a walk in the falling snow on Sunday. It was my idea. At least it was my idea to go with him. We had to get some library items in the drop box before morning. Ed usually makes that walk alone as he can do it twice as fast without me. I was gleeful as a child about it but he would have preferred to stay in even if it meant eating the library fines. He has to work on the shipping docks in the stuff and doesn't think it is fun anymore.

About half way to the library, I noticed that a traffic sign indicating merging lanes ahead was covered in a half inch of snow and unreadable. I thought that was dangerous so as I walked under it I reached my white cane up to brush off the snow. Most of it fell on my face, coating my glasses, inside my hood and down my neck and inside the front of my coat.

And wouldn't you know it but my zipper was stuck. By the time I got my coat unzipped the snow had melted. While I stood there struggling with the coat with the hood down, snow fell off the phone and power lines overhead and hit me on the head and cars going by slung slush that hit me in the back of the legs and when I swung around to see what in the world, I got hit in the front with great globs of brown slush.

OK fun was over.

I had my new digital camera out and had been taking pictures of everything in sight. But wasn't snapping one at the moment the snow fell off the sign. Too bad I wasn't shooting a video. I could have sent it to AFV.

On the return walk we were walking into the very slight breeze and suddenly I wasn't gleeful anymore. I was getting hit in the eyeballs with snowflakes and sucking in and spitting out large ones the size of Monarch butterflies because I couldn't breathe through my nose. By the time we got back home the footprints we'd left in the two inches on the driveway on the way out were filled in and then some. I haven't seen that much snow at once since I was a kid.


This was the sign I knocked the snow off of. I took this pic on the way home and after we'd passed it by about ten yards. It was already being obscured by snow again.


This is of the driveway as we were returning. It shows by their absence the obliterated footprints we'd left behind an hour earlier.

This is down the lane and shows how you can barely see the next yard or across the street.


As soon as we got home, Ed went in and brought Merlin out. See the flakes on his back? I'm wasn't kidding about the Monarch butterfly sized snowflakes.



This is Merlin saying, "Fun is done!" It's a bit blurry because I'm holding the leash and he is lunging like an ox trying to lurch a loaded wagon into motion.

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Thursday Thirteen #66

Thirteen Pictures of the Snow We Got Christmas Night Which I Took With My New Digital Camera

1. These were all taken between eight and nine o'clock Wednesday morning. The snow was gone by noon. It has been spitting snow again all day but it isn't sticking. I'm so glad I made it to the library Monday!

2. My father-in-law's car. Ed was taking it to work during the hectic weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas when he had to commute before or after the buses were running.

3. Ed took the bus Wednesday morning. His Mom stayed home so no tire marks backing out.

4. The paper usually comes before five in the morning but it hadn't arrived yet when I took this.

5. Sweetie was romping in the snow. Merlin was doing his best to stay out of it. See last night's post for his close encounter with the snow. As this pic was taken Sweetie was being called back in the house and soon after that, I took pity on Merlin and picked him up. I was carrying him around while the rest of the pictures were taken and he was putting up with it. He is not much for being held or cuddled. Though he has increased in affection since my return last week.

Most of the following pictures I took because I'm fascinated by the way the snow turns ordinary objects into something extraordinary. I suppose I would get over that if I lived where the snow was knee deep for weeks every year.

Except for the final one, I took the rest one-handed while holding Merlin over my left shoulder. Something I couldn't have done with my other camera.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10. I held the camera over the fence and pointed it down to get this. I couldn't have done that with my other camera and expected to get anything worth looking at.

11. Across the back yard fence. The pool is inside the green fence beyond the trees. Right around Thanksgiving some joker reached over the fence and tossed the hose into the pool and turned it on. The pool overflowed and our yard and the yards to either side of us turned into big mud puddles.

12. Dreaming of summer.

13. Taken out the window after returning to my room. This is the roofs of the neighbor's shed and carport. I'm watching the snow fall on them right now. It isn't sticking anywhere except in some of the leaves of the tree

Attempts to take pictures out the window with my other camera got me nothing but big balls of white light. I am really liking this new Camera. I am nothing but an amateur and I know it but I'm having fun.

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Cold Feets

I was planning to do my TT this evening after I got Ed's help downloading the pics I took of the snow this morning. I hadn't learned how to get them safely from the camera to the laptop yet. Ed walked me through it just a bit ago but now I'm just too tired to choose thirteen of the thirty odd pictures I took, prepare them and upload them and then prepare the post and then start the visiting. So I'm postponing until tomorrow. I leave you one teaser. This is Merlin trying to walk on the tips of the blades of grass. Or maybe he thinks inflating his tail will help him levitate.

The snow was mostly gone by noon today. But the forecast is for more overnight.

I spent the day reading a novel. The last time I did that was December 3rd my first day in Longview when I read Bridge to Terebithia in a single day. Today I finished Jodi Poucoult's The Tenth Circle having started it Monday evening. This was my first Poucoult and I'm sure to try more. I'm much too tired and bleary-eyed to review it now.

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