Sitting around musing (brooding, or maybe moping, are probably better words) here at the very end of January, I find myself pondering on the nature of Time, how it moves, how the seasons turn in their cycles. I was feeling metaphorical (I seem to be getting that way more often these days) and thought how the year is like a river, a stream of time that flows along through the seasons. At times it seems to move faster, especially toward the end of the year when it hits the narrow rapids of the holidays. Then in January it widens out and slows down and flows into sluggish pools that finally freeze solid in February. In March, when the thaw begins, it can slowly break apart or suddenly burst into movement. Then it glides on through spring, picking up its pace through summer and accelerating on to begin the cycle all over again. Right now we’ve hit that stretch when the river of time begins its glacial crawl through February.
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| The Genesee River almost frozen over. |
I saw a meme the other day on social media that made me think for a moment. It said: If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life, but still the same amount of snow. I do take joy in the snow sometimes. At times it is breathtakingly beautiful. One morning last week I got up in the wee hours to tend the wood stove and I looked out the window and saw a brilliant crescent moon shining through the bare branches of the maples. It was just a thin slice of moon, but it glowed with enough light to cast purple shadows across the snow. The snow in the moonlight looked smooth and blue. I had to stop and stare at it. I did feel joy at the sight of it. I should have reflected back on that moment later in the day when I had to trudge through deep snow that had drifted across my path to the barn. I wasn’t finding any joy in it then. I guess I find the most joy in the snow when I don’t have to go out in it. By the time February rolls around, the moments of snow joy are growing pretty scarce.
I’ve reached that point in the year when it seems almost futile to take photographs outdoors. The landscape hardly varies from day to day, week to week. I have to look carefully to determine when I took a particular photo, they all look the same – snow, snow, and more snow. The only thing that changes is the depth of the drifts and the length of the icicles hanging from the eaves of the house. But even so, I try to go out every day and take at least a little walk with my camera, hoping to come upon something startling or especially beautiful to capture. That seems to occur less and less as these monochrome days drag on.
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| One of several snowy days last week. |
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| A snowy day last week. |
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| Icicles on Wednesday. |
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| Icicles on Saturday. |
It’s hard for me to find distractions in February. I’ve grown tired of so many things by then. I can’t find any books that hold my interest. My favorite music is sounding a bit stale. I find myself looking for fresh new things, but nothing satisfies me for long. This happens every year. February is the most frustrating month of the year for me.
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| Frosty sunrise. |
I’ve been told that if I were to take up some winter sport, I’d not only better endure these tedious weeks, but would actually look forward to them. I’ve never been inclined toward any sport. I’ve always found other diversions more attractive. Skiing, snowmobiling, ice skating, tobogganing, snow shoeing – none of them appeals to me. The few I have tried were not good experiences. When I was eleven, I received a pair of ice skates for Christmas. Anxious to try them out, I went out onto our front porch and put them on, stepped onto the icy driveway, took a few steps, slipped, fell, and broke my arm. Years later I tried to ice skate in a real rink, but it was too traumatic for me. A few years after we moved here, someone gave us some snowshoes and I tried snowshoeing, but it was like trying to walk while shoveling snow with my feet. Snowmobiling is too noisy. And skiing has never been a temptation. I have too vivid an imagination to allow myself to try standing on two slick boards, plummeting down hills. I used to like sledding and tobogganing when I was younger, but now all I can think of is having to trudge back up a snowy hill every time I go down. So winters are mostly sedentary times for me. I sit around and brood and crave rich food to comfort me while I pine for spring. But there are some things just ahead to brighten my mood.
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| A sunrise last week. |
February is the month when my garden plans begin to take clearer form. I have a pile of seed catalogs that have accumulated over the past months. I’ve already looked through all of them several times. But now it’s time to put my dreams and ideas into an organized form. In February I go through the catalogs again and make my seed price comparison charts and draw up my garden maps. It’s a great distraction for me, but it also intensifies my longing for spring. Still, it brings me hope.
Given the right circumstances, my gardening year can actually begin in February. If the weather cooperates and gives me a day or two of milder temperatures, I will prune the orchard. Some years that happens, some years it doesn’t and I have to wait until desperation forces me to prune in bad weather. I’m always anxious to do the pruning. This year is a Big Pruning Year, in fact it’s a Drastic Pruning Year. My usual practice is to prune lightly one year, and harder the next. But many of the older trees in my orchard have become too big to be practical and this year I will do some major sawing and lopping to bring them back into shape. There are branches growing too low to the ground that will come off. Many of the trees are too tall and will get cut back to a more manageable height. And they all need thinning. Such drastic pruning may reduce my harvest this year, but the trees will recover and become more productive in the years to come. And pruning will be especially nice this year because I received a nice pruning saw for Christmas. I can hardly wait to use it.
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| At dusk one evening last week. |
In the middle of February we have a family gathering down at the Thayn’s house, our Third Annual Italy Weekend, when we celebrate our February birthdays and commemorate our trip to Italy in 2019. The commemoration is all about food, of course. The menu has been under discussion for weeks already. Miriam and Hannah have been working on perfecting their cannolis. Suggestions for what flavor the gelato will be are under consideration. It’s the most anticipated event of the month.
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| Dusk one day last week. |
On Friday afternoon Miriam and Hannah left to go down to the Thayn’s house for the weekend, so Stacey and I have been the only ones home and it’s been very quiet. We shuffle around the house doing this and that. Making meals seems almost silly when it’s just the two of us. The girls go down to visit often enough that it shouldn’t seem so strange to me for just the two of us to be here, but it does.
The weather was very cold all week. The warmest it got all week was 20°, which almost felt balmy, and the coldest it got, until this morning, was -17°. Most of the time we’ve stayed right around 0°. It’s so cold that when I bring wood in from outdoors, the pieces are frozen together and I have to let them thaw a while before I can burn them. There’s about eight inches of snow on the ground and it’s so cold that the newest snow is like cornstarch, powder dry and squeaky when you walk on it. Even the slightest breeze blows it like dust that settles in drifts on the leeward side of every object. The icicles on the front of the house have reached lengths now where we can see them through the first floor windows. That January is almost gone should be a comfort except I know February will be no better. I remind myself all the time that each day that passes brings us that much closer to spring.
I went out before dawn this morning to bring in some firewood. I should have done that last night, but didn’t. I looked at the thermometer before I went out – it was -18° with a wind chill of -22°. I bundled up and braced myself and went out through the back porch. To say the cold was bracing would be kind. It was brutal. But it was also beautiful. The snow looked blue in the dim light of the dark sky. There was no sign of the approaching sun yet. As I came around the corner of the house, I scared three rabbits that were scrounging for fallen seeds under the bird feeders. They ran off across the front yard, leaving new tracks across the snow. I looked up at the sky. It was inky black and full of bright stars, but brightest of them all was Venus shining just above the horizon, a sharp brilliant point of light just to the east of the constellation Scorpius. I wish I could have stared at the sky longer, but I was shivering. I pulled the tarp off the woodpile. It was stiff and crackled as I pulled it back. I took two loads of wood into the house, stoked the fire up and then sat in the warmth of it to watch the sun come up, feeling thankful for the beauty of the sky and the heat of the stove and the peace of the day. It was a nice way to begin the Sabbath.
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| Sunrise this morning. |
There weren’t many people at church today, just twenty. Maybe the extreme cold kept them away. Now we are home and settling in for the rest of the day. Miriam and Hannah will be home later this evening. The week ahead looks a little warmer. We’re supposed to get above freezing midweek, at least for a day, before heading back down again. But that’s February.
