We had our first big snowstorm last week and it was great. I estimate we got around 25 inches. This photo was taken during the early part of the storm; the picket fence has since disappeared under banks pushed in place by the snow plow.
Cammy was mystified by the depth of snow, and even though I have shoveled a nice dog run for her in the front yard, she remains convinced that it is still in my power to take her to that nice big green place where she could run freely if only I weren’t so stubborn. When I walk her up the street she regards the snowbanks towering over her on either side of the road with astonishment. The landscape of her world is completely unrecognizable.
As a kid, I wondered about the predictive capabilities of groundhogs. Perhaps it says something about the shallowness of my nature that, unlike the groundhog, I assumed a bright sunny day to be a harbinger of spring, not the harsh sentence of 6 more weeks or winter.
This morning as I walked Cammy and contemplated the shadows we were casting on the headstones of Old Quechee Cemetery, I wondered again about the science of groundhog day. It is a bright, clear, cold day.
… but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking,” says one dog to another in the New Yorker cartoon.
I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been doing most of my pointless, incessant barking at Dave. It has been a tough month and I haven’t wanted to dwell in writing on what are mostly minor problems in the grand scheme of things.
And here it is just about February. I’ve always held that February is the longest month because it falls at that point when it seems as if winter will go on forever. Since our winter weather didn’t start until quite late this year, I am hoping February will not be the usual long trudge across Siberia.
In the meantime, I promised Jared I would publish a link to the videos he recorded at the Tuesday night Acoustic Coalition at Marshland Farm. Come in from the cold and sit by the fire with us for a while.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man
