Snowflakes
It has been snowing all day today.
It started during the night and slowly built into some significant snowfall.
Saturday mornings I usually meet business associates and friends for breakfast and spend about an hour and a half talking and relaxing with those there. It was the usual time this morning as I arrived. I left the house a little earlier than usual because of the overnight snowfall and several vehicles were off to the side of the road from skidding off into a snow bank. Usually this happens because people drive too fast for the conditions or try using their cruise control on icy roads causing the vehicle to spin out.
My golden retriever, Levi usually goes with me on my Saturday morning outings. We head to breakfast and then finish any errands before returning home. He enjoys this time and loves the snow. Levi heads out and usually will roll around making snow angels or burying his head in the large piles of snow around the house where we snowplow the driveway. These piles grow rather large by mid winter so Levi has a great time playing, marking his territory, and rolling around. His reddish coat turns ‘white’ with the snow frozen to his fur. This is usually when he decides to come inside again.
I had an unusually busy week at work even with the holiday schedule so I wanted to relax today. Hanging out watching the snowfall is quite relaxing and I spent most of the day doing so. My office is located so I can easily see outside and watch the snow gently coming down while I was on the computer. It has a calming effect as you watch the feathery flakes gently gliding towards the earth from the grey sky above. So many of them unique in their perfect design but thousands of them falling as I watch. Perhaps even millions riding the very light wind this morning each snowflake a masterpiece crafted by angels as we were told as children. The beauty of these crystalline flakes unique in personality as the ‘angels’ were working overtime to cut out so many falling all around me.
As my mind wandered in the serene scene around me I wondered how many angels must be working this weekend. The news said Denver was having another blizzard along with parts of the mid-western United States so apparently there was plenty labor of love from the angels today.
The flakes were falling all around and I spent about an hour outside helping my grand daughter’s other grandmother get her car unstuck from my driveway (which was not yet plowed this morning). She had drove up onto a snow pile at the top of my driveway where the plow going down our road had pushed snow into each side of my circular drive. When she hit the top and was turning onto the road she high centered her car and only the front left and rear right tires were on the ground but lacked the traction to get her unstuck.
After shoveling underneath her car and clearing enough to get her vehicle back down the driveway my son and I were able to push the car back and after several attempts with kids in the car yelling that we made it, things got better with the car topping the driveway and soon they were on their way to go sledding. The wind had picked up a little now and the snow felt good hitting my cheeks. Each snowflake quickly melted away as my skin was warm now from the exertion from shoveling. Levi made his way to make additional ‘angles’ in fresh snow. He likes to jump at the snow as it leaves the blade of my shovel trying to catch it in his mouth. His face now white from all the snow thrown close to him and I think he is in his element in the snow.
The snow was falling harder now as I settle into my chair to enjoy its beauty. After the workout from shoveling I wondered how it can be that each of these snowflakes, some tiny and many larger ones, could be so light and airy as they float effortlessly to the ground. But when millions of them ‘cling’ together on the ground they weigh so much when I shoveled them out of the way earlier. It seemed like we moved a thousand pounds of snow trying to get the vehicle unstuck. How can that be? It seems to defy logic as the feathery ones in the air could be so much after hitting the ground.
The news last week after another big snowfall made a comparison of how many “billion” cubic feet of snow fell in the metro
The evergreen trees now covered heavily laden with snow. A delicate balance on the limbs until a strong enough wind blows the snow out of tree and onto the ground. Decks are filling up with snow where I have not kept up with its removal over the holidays. It is almost up too and over the railings on my back deck. The railings itself has over a foot tall mound of snow resting on its edge. As the temperature rose somewhat last week after Christmas this snow on the railings started to slowly bend over the outside edge and with time over several days made an upside down “U” shape without falling off the railing. It extended down past the top of the railing by about 4 or 5 inches but never fell to the ground below. With the snow now it is growing in height above the rail and taking on the shape of an upside down “V”. It is pretty neat to see this lesson of molecular structure at work firsthand.
The guy I have plow my circular driveway came about seven o’clock tonight moving things around and cleaning up the deep drifts that had formed. It is now past eleven pm and you can’t tell he was really here anymore. Another 6 to eight inches have fallen since then and the flakes have gotten bigger.
It is time to slowly let my mind slow down, turn from the snow falling outside and enjoy the warm fire in my fireplace. I may stoke the fire with several logs and fade into a blissful nights sleep on the sofa.
Goodnight everyone, I hope your day was a blissful as mine.
“Living the Dream”
Ice
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