Nat’s first encounter with the aftermath of a blizzard 2.6.78 ~ Ledyard, Connecticut
Snow memories… Blizzard Charlotte keeps reminding us of Blizzard Larry, which stormed through Connecticut thirty-five years ago on February 6, 1978, when we also got 21 inches of snow. Our son was two years old at the time, and was already showing signs of the outdoor-loving guy he was to become.
2.6.78 ~ Ledyard, Connecticut
Yesterday I kept thinking about these pictures and so decided to learn how to use the scanner today. Nate (we used to call him Nat, but his friends changed his nickname to Nate) moved to Georgia in 2011 and he very much misses New England and snow. Tim set up a webcam for him so he could watch the blizzard outside our kitchen window on his computer as the storm was in progress.
Tim and Nat taking a walk to see what they could see
While flipping through the photo album I came across this picture of my sister Beverly and the swan she sculpted from a snowfall the year before, in the winter of 1977.
Beverly and her lovely swan ~ 1977 ~ Storrs, Connecticut
Connecticut averaged about 30 inches of snow, down here by the coast in southeastern Connecticut we got 21 inches. Below is the first peek out the door the morning after!
Blizzard Charlotte ~ 2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
Our governor has banned all use of roads today – we won’t be going anywhere any time soon. Our neighbor’s son has been digging out his mom’s car and thankfully he will be doing ours, too! It’s heavy wet snow. The workers with the snow-blowers to clean off the sidewalks have not even arrived yet.
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
Relieved of shoveling responsibilities we decided to take a short walk. The wind is still blowing and biting. That’s me in the next picture, bundled up and ready to proceed.
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
We heard many limbs snapping off trees during the peak of the storm. These evergreens (below) behind our unit normally stand tall and straight. They are terribly bent over now by the weight of the snow…
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
After we finished checking out the back we decided to take a walk up the road, which is normally very busy with traffic. It would seem everyone is in compliance with the travel ban.
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
Returning home through the other end of the parking lot we found another evergreen between three other buildings weighed down by the snow.
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
Sadly, there was a terrible incident at our condo complex this morning. I heard a woman screaming and quickly went to look out the window. A small group of people had gathered around the woman but I couldn’t see what was happening because of the snow drifts. Soon a policeman arrived and our neighbor later informed us that someone’s dog had attacked and killed someone else’s dog. I was stunned. Tim later saw the policeman taking away a little body in a black plastic bag. Rest in peace, little dog…
2.9.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
There’s our neighbor (above) still working away at his massive shoveling job! We went back inside and had some hot cocoa, feeling a little guilty that we had not done any shoveling to earn such a delicious reward!
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. ~ Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
Oh! where do fairies hide their heads, When snow lies on the hills? When frost has spoiled their mossy beds, And crystallized their rills: Beneath the moon they cannot trip In circles o’er the plain: And draughts of dew they cannot sip, Till green leaves come again. ~ Thomas Haynes Bayly (Songs & Ballads, Grave & Gay)
Haley Farm State Park ~ 1.27.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
Not too long ago my friend Kathy, over at Lake Superior Spirit, looked around her little house in the snowy Michigan woods for colorful or meaningful objects to take outside and put in different places in the snow for a photo shoot. She suggested I might try it sometime.
Well, sad to say, it hasn’t been snowing much here in southeastern Connecticut since the winter of 2011, which was the snowiest winter we ever had. But I decided to carefully pack up the most meaningful of my objects, a large doe figurine, and head out to hunt for a little patch of relatively unspoiled snow.
1.27.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
We wound up at Haley Farm State Park and chose a few spots on a crumbling, lovely old stone wall. For the first picture, which is my favorite, I positioned my doe on a stone that had fallen in front of the wall. For the second spot I put her up on top of the wall so she was a little above the camera. Tim suggested the third setting, placing her on the ground in front of the wall. The little birds came from home, too, as they are usually perched with the doe on a special shelf in my room.
1.27.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
It was fun, Kathy! Then something wonderful happened after we had packed up my precious doe and her little bird friends. A few people came along with their dogs, who were off-leash. Some of my readers may know that I’ve been afraid of large dogs ever since one bit me when I was a toddler. But I watch Cesar Millan on the Dog Whisperer all the time, trying to understand dog behavior and overcome my deeply entrenched fears.
1.27.13 ~ Groton, Connecticut
With my deer totem safely in my bag and my husband by my side I watched in awe as three dogs, who seemed to belong to several different couples, greeted each other and asked each other to play. All agreed and a fast game of chase ensued! I suppose dog owners see this kind of thing all the time but for me it was amazing. The dogs were running like the wind, making huge circles around a tree, and barking for the joy and thrill of being alive. Their energy was boundless, and they whooshed close by us several times. I wasn’t afraid! I could interpret their behavior correctly! Tim took the camera and tried to get a few pictures. I will never forget this experience!
I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future – the timelessness of the rocks and the hills – all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape – the loneliness of it – the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it – the whole story doesn’t show. I think anything like that – which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone – people always feel is sad. Is it because we’ve lost the art of being alone? ~ Andrew Wyeth (LIFE, May 14, 1965)
When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night, the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night. ~ Alice Hoffman (Here on Earth)
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his “thoughts,” not those other things, are his history. His acts and his words are merely the visible, thin crust of his world, with its scattered snow summits and its vacant wastes of water – and they are so trifling a part of his bulk! a mere skin enveloping it. The mass of him is hidden – it and its volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night, nor day. These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written. Every day would make a whole book of eighty thousand words – three hundred and sixty-five books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man – the biography of the man himself cannot be written. ~ Mark Twain (Studies in Biography)
A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow – Tho’ I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea’s eternal thrall. I would that I were there and over me The cold insistence of the tide would roll, Quenching this burning thing men call the soul, – Then with the ebbing I should drift and be Less than the smallest shell along the shoal, Less than the seagulls calling to the sea. ~ Sara Teasdale (Sea Longing)
