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Snow? Yes! Not much, but enough to cover everything and make the world beautiful. Here’s a little promo video Mount Snow produced last week, showing what it was like on the slopes on Martin Luther King Birthday weekend. (Notice how empty the trails are! ) And, yes, that’s me doing all the fancy downhill moves. I lied.
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 Wilmington, Vermont Much of our life is triangulated between Wilmington VT, Charlemont MA and Greenfield MA, the place where we hang our hats most nights. In the last week, we've been as far north as Manchester VT, as far south as Springfield MA, west as Lee and east as Auburn, just outside of Worcester. No matter which route we take, spring seems to follow us back forth over he border, one day here, the next day somewhere else. While the middle of the country and the South were pummeled, we’ve been warm, hot, cool and cold, sometimes all in the same day. One glorious day it got up to 84, then turned around and snowed the next. There’s no middle ground in the Northeast in the middle of April. If you’re not careful, you can miss spring entirely. Piles of stubborn snow persist but so do little clumps of bulbs, often in the oddest spots. Easter will be cold, but I’m betting on a warm Memorial Day.  Charlemont, Massachusetts We didn’t get as much as they predicted, which was good news. The bad news is there’s more coming this weekend and next week. People who haven’t raked their roofs (or don’t own rakes) are having a difficult time. Most hardware stores sold out of shovels and rakes long ago. Meanwhile, roofs are caving in all over the place from the weight of snow and ice. Here’s some incredible video of one such collapse: http://www.necn.com/02/02/11/Unbelievable-video-Roof-of-commercial-bu/landing_newengland.html?blockID=402537&feedID=4206 We have roughly 3 feet of snow on the ground, but much deeper piles along every driveway and every street. Intersections are tricky since you enter blindly. There's a 10-foot pile down the middle of Northampton's main drag. That's because the town doesn't own a payloader big enough to dump in trucks and cart it away. They just plow it into a wall of snow in the middle of the street. It’s been quite cold (teens-20s during the day, near 0 or below at night). If it’s not snowing, chances are there’s black ice on the road, something much worse than the white stuff. Locals know to slow down, so there actually were few accidents yesterday, considering. Still, several people lost their lives to the storm. Today, the sun in shining and the sky is an indecent blue. Temps are just below freezing, a far cry from what we’ve over the past two weeks. Here are a few photos we took yesterday, during a lull in the storm. Snow to our left and behind us is fallen snow, showing the depth. Snow to our right is piled snow left by the plow when it cut a walkway to our apartment building. Pile next to the road is typical of what we see all over Greenfield. It’s a foot higher a few miles up the road in Wilmington, Vermont.     True, the snow started late this year, but that’s no reason to dump an entire season worth of snow on our little area in a short month! We’ve had at least dozen snows, leaving behind a solid 2 feet after meltbacks and dry-outs from sub-zero temps. The stuff is hard frozen and piled up along every drive and every road as far as you can travel in a day. Most driveways are lined with 3-4-foot walls of the white stuff. Towns have piled up snow 10 or more feet in parking lots, down the middle of major streets in towns like Northampton, and anywhere else anyone will let them. Here’s a photo taken within the last week in Wilmington VT, borrowed from the town website. Today and tomorrow, Wilmington could get an additional 3 feet.  We’re bracing for 2 more feet down here in the valley over the next two days, then another whopper is due over the weekend. All I can say is, snow gods, do you have us mixed up with Buffalo, New York? Turn left and follow the Thruway! The thermometer reached well into the 40s today. Can spring be far behind? Here are a few photos taken in southern Vermont yesterday, March 4, 2010. We checked on the cabin, and everything was fine. I guess we could have cleared the patio furniture off the deck last summer, but why?     Dear Friends, We had it all this year at Christmastime – holiday music, get togethers with friends (at their homes!), a lovely tree, a grandchild to play with, snow, family and more snow. Hope you were equally fortunate. Happy New Year to all! Cheers, Paula                   What good is winter in New England without snow? This was only a dusting, but an especially pretty one. More to come later this week and -- hopefully -- on and on and on.   |
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Retired reporter, writer, wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, photographer, singer, knitter, kayaker, cook, swimmer -- not all at the same time
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