Snow and Fire

 

When cold blows in from Canada, pushed up by warm wind from Texas, snow happens suddenly and furiously.  Only older siblings, big enough to sink only to the knee and then leap into the snow face first, could rejoice.

For two small children, enjoyment was peering out through icy panes and wishing.  Mom…Mom…Mom…Can we go outside, too?  Mom? Mom?  Mom relented only when Mom became unbearable.

Two and four years old, Mary and Bill were wrapped, bundled, booted, and mittened, then given instructions:  Stay on the porch.  Both nodded solemnly.

Mom stood at the kitchen door, staring through the lacy ice crystals at five children enjoying the snow.  Then Bill launched off the porch into deep white sea. Bill, she sighed. 

Stomping out the door, Mom grabbed him by scruff of his coat and pulled him up.  Then Mary whispered, “Mommy!  Mommy!  Look!  Fire in trees!  Fire in snow!”

Fire in the trees?  In the snow?  She beheld glorious cardinals perched in bare trees.  Fiery cardinals with black masks.  Brave cardinals in frigid air.

Fire in the Trees

Mom hollered, “You kids get in here.  Been out long enough!”  But she continued to watch until fire became scarlet birds winging over snowy horizons.  

For those bloggers in the beginning of a long winter, this story is about the snow of 1958, which has been called the mini-ice age.  Keep warm, enjoy the beauty as much as you are able, and Merry Christmas.This is a repost of 2014 and 2021.

 

 

Does anyone ever really understand snow?

Watching the Weather channel is always a shocker. My Mid-west family are having temperatures in the high-50s, for now.  My Swiss family (which includes a new baby boy) have zoomed from -2 all the way up to 28 deg.  Our five-year drought has been ended with days and days of rain, with feet and feet of snow in mountains surrounding us.

My oldest daughter spent a week in Switzerland helping with care of little man Jamie and 4.5 year-old Benjamin.  She did not expect the slam-in-your face snow.

Eskimos have bunches of names for snow.  Mid-westerners have their own descriptions of snow, some of them unrepeatable.  But Switzerland snow?

This is her observation:

Snowflakes on the cuff of my jacket. I've never been anywhere they didn't melt as soon as they made contact. Flakes are the size of 1/4 grain of rice.

 

Back in sunny California and it's hailing. One impression left from Switzerland was the silence. The snow muffled everything. Right now the house feels like it's being attacked by the storm and the noise is deafening.

Good to have her home.