Wordless Wednesday - Alight

Sequestered, Week 327 (CCCXXVII)

Friday Ramble - January's Performing Arts

 

A rowdy north wind cavorts across the roof, rollicking through sleeping trees and shrubberies in the garden, making the frozen branches creak like old wooden sailing ships. The icicles suspended from the eaves behind the house are abstract glossy confections, streaked with gold and silver and filled with tiny bubbles. Ebullient gusts of wind shake them loose from their moorings, and the glassy shards plunge clattering into the pillowy snowdrifts wrapping the house.

Advised to remain indoors, I slip outside for a few minutes anyway and snap photos of nearby trees and icicles, chimneys and sky. Wrapped up and looking for all the world like a yeti (or an abominable something anyway), I stand in the pebbled snow in the garden and capture a few images, try to figure out how in the world I can describe everything, the perfect light, the burnished hues of the icicles, the emeralds of the evergreens, the blues and violets of the snow, the buttery siding on my neighbor's kitchen wall, the scarlet of a male cardinal as it flies into the cedar hedge.

The icicles communicate the colors and shapes of this day without any help from me at all. They rattle, chatter and chime, sing Gilbert and Sullivan duets with the wind (mostly bits from Iolanthe), pretend they are tubular bells at times or recite epic stanzas from the Poetic Eddas. The Norse elements of their performance seem fitting - at times it has been cold enough here for Ragnarök, and we wondered if this is the Fimbulwinter, the walloping winter to end them all.

With all the elemental performances being given this morning, few words are actually needed from this old hen. I can just stand here in a snowdrift with the camera, get out of its way (and my own) and let it see the world without trying to impose my questionable taste on its thoughtful and loving journey.

Out of the blue, a thought comes as I turn to go back inside before anyone notices that I am no longer in there, but rather out here. It is the images that are capturing me this morning, and not me capturing them. Methinks it's a Zen thing.

Rumors of Spring

Happy March!

For a few days this week, weather in the village was mild, and the towering snowdrifts everywhere subsided a bit. Birds sang lightheartedly in the park, and maples in the garden sprouted tiny red buds. For a while we dared to entertain the fragile hope that springtime was on its way and warmer times were not far off.

Alas, March roared in like a lion. Several inches of snow fell overnight, and we are back to heaving white stuff out of our way. I have already shoveled the deck, the stairs and a track around the garden for Beau, and I will tackle the front walk and driveway after my fingers have warmed up. First, a fine cup of hot, black coffee.

Weather Canada says the snow will stop in an hour or so, but I am not holding my breath. There are snow clouds up there from one side of the sky to the other, and a nasty north wind is rampaging through the village. When the sun rises tomorrow morning, the temperature will be in the minus thirties (Celsius) with windchill factored into the equation. Old Man Winter is not done with us yet. Harumph.

And Away We Go...

Icy Morning, Rising Sun

On a cold morning a few days ago, we (Beau and I) admired the icicles dangling from the eaves of an old house near home. There was a raw north wind, and we thought it would bring this winter's handsome confections crashing down into the snowdrifts below in slivers and shards, a noisy and rather dramatic end to be sure.

Silly us, the wind will not be the architect of such creations, at least this time around. Temperatures in the village will rise today, and our icicles will dwindle and fade away, strange doings at a time when temperatures are usually well below zero, and ice stalactites often reach several feet in length.

Liking the way icicles catch the morning sun on our morning walks, we are feeling cheated. In a day or two (of course) temperatures will plummet, and the village will be a  sea of ice again. As above, so below. Here we go again, cleats on our boots. walking sticks with ice prongs, salt and sand and the whole shebang.

Icy Morning, Rising Sun

Melting, Slow and Easy

Pond Dreaming of Springtime

Artless in Suspension

Wordless Wednesday - Silenced

Wordless Wednesday - Icing

Ice and Morning Light

Wordless Wednesday - Catching the Winter Sun

Wordless Wednesday - Iced

Suspended in Light

Rumors of Spring

Worlds Within and Alight

Wordless Wednesday - Icy

Wolf Moon and Eclipse (Not)

She rises before sunrise and brews up a lovely mug of espresso in the DiLongi, then lurches into the study to write a blog post.

There are one or two recent photos she thinks are OK, but she can't for the life of her figure out what to say about them. The words simply do not come. For someone who spends so much time with her nose in a book and thinking about word origins, the absence is a shocking state of affairs.

Perhaps the cold has something to do with it, could her brain have frozen over? When she and Beau ventured outside for the first time this morning, dark clouds obscured the sky, and the thermometer registered a balmy -38 degrees Celsius, a temperature just about as cold when expressed in Fahrenheit degrees. It snowed all night, and there is at least a foot of snow in the driveway and on the cobblestones at the front of the house.

She wishes she and her companion had been able to see the full moon and total lunar eclipse on Sunday evening, that skies had been clear and they had been able to gaze on all the splendiferous red up there in the darkness. There were dark clouds from here to there, and they saw it not. Shucks.

One thing about this winter - the village is growing some fabulous icicles. When sunlight shines through them, they shimmer and dazzle, and they seem to hold the whole universe within. One can almost forget what a nippy undertaking it is, this glacial business of trying to capture them with a camera.