First Big Snowfall

Orchids, blooming in a windowsill.

The first big snowfall of this season took us by surprise. We awoke from dreamy sleep, and looked out the window to see the whole lot covered in white . . . and silent. A big cape of white, thrown atop everything—as if to stop the world.

We ventured forth despite the cold and cumbersome streets, slipping our way along to a coffee shop that dared to open. Not as busy this morning. After coffee and the Sunday paper, we trudged for a walk in the old part of town. Our dog, Gracie, liked this new experience very much, leaping about with glee. She comes to us from California, where she never knew what cold is.
I love photographing in snow . . . it is poetic, and shapes become minimal—surfaces serene.

Heaven and Earth

“All Heaven and Earth
Flowered white obliterate...
Snow...unceasing snow”
― Hashin, Japanese Haiku: Two Hundred Twenty Examples of Seventeen-Syllable Poems

I live in a place that receives snow in winter, and although it can be inconvenient, it is also beautiful and poetic. When snow falls, the world changes in front of our eyes, it becomes silent, and shrouded, as if a blanket has been thrown over everything, and it is time to sleep.

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?" J. B. Priestley

Today, as I drove to my gallery, I had to detour to take pictures of the magical landscape. It is only ephemeral, this vision, because as the sun warms the earth, the blanket melts away and sharp forms spring forth once again.

Did you know that very light snow is known to occur at high latitudes on Mars?

Here on planet Earth, the world record for the highest seasonal total snowfall was measured in the United States at Mount Baker Ski Area, outside of the town Bellingham, Washington during the 1998–1999 season. Mount Baker received 2,896 cm (1,140 in. - or 95 ft) of snow.