Friday, February 12, 2010

The Ice Age Has Begun - one more time

Howling dogs, advancing glaciers, creaking wood - snowdrifts forming around everything, and great trees bend under the weight of snow. Overly bundled people saunter out into the cold, struggling against the elements that have bound them to their homes. A new ice age? Nope.

In WV, we call this February.

The snowstorm retreats southward, and the city tries to dig out. This picture was taken by my friend Jose'. It's a street on the other side of town from mine.

Franklin, Julius, and I decided to take a walk in the snow (18 inches of it). It was very cold, and we weren't out long, but it was a nice break after being stuck in the house for two days. The above picture is of me and Franklin in front of the pine tree in the backyard, what you can see of it. It is nearly buried in the snow.

Julius is the more adventurous of the two cats. Above he's bounding through the snow around the car. He eventually got stuck under it, so I had to dig him out.

And he spent the rest of the evening napping in the living room. He'd had enough of the snow.

Ah, Sanford St. Can't see it? It's that flat space between the telephone pole on the left and the parked car on the right. The city hasn't plowed the streets yet, so the neighbors all got out our snowshovels and cleared our own street, and put down salt. By the end we had the clearest street in Morgantown.

Here's the giant white oak in the backyard. It's beautiful anytime of year, but simply enchanting with all this snow.

Here is a further view of the oak tree.


Strange how the snow "grew around the clothesline, even. Just odd. This is really wet, heavy, sticky snow. It has partially melted and refroze, so it is now partly turned into tiny 5 inch thick glaciers in various places around.

Where is the sun? I will take spring and summer any day now. I know that freezes are good for planting, gardening, and insect abation, but dangit I am DONE with winter!

7 comments:

Susan at Stony River said...

Those photos are beautiful! Poor kitty -- and I've never seen snow that heavy on a clothesline before.

Mountainword said...

I know- between the weight of it on the clothesline and the depth of it on the ground, the snow nearly met in the middle! It was insane!

Nishant said...

I'm so glad she's got them to support her now; my heart's broken for her, for all of them

Work From Home

Nance said...

I enjoyed all these photos -- we have snow here in Iowa but it is an Accumulation. We didn't get it all at once, as you did. So after all this snow we have here, I still found your photos so pretty. The first one should be entered in the State Fair!

Mountainword said...

The snow is still here. The freezing temperatures are not letting it freeze. I put out the trash this morning in bags because my trash can is buried under a giant drift of snow at the end of the driveway.

I'm ready for this to all be gone. The cold and snow are no longer pretty to me - they're depressing. It's like a big padlock on the door to my yard that won't let me out.

The first picture is very pretty, and was actually taken on the other side of Morgantown (Evansdale) by my friend Jose' Oquendo.

Interesting how we can send photos and keep in communication even though we're all essentially trapped by this mess of a storm.

Mountainword said...

*freezing temps. aren't allowing the snow to melt*

kanishk said...

Those photos are beautiful!
indian classified site