Winter Wonderland

I get up in the mornings around 4:00AM. I used to wonder why anyone would get up so early voluntarily. It's a combination of habit, waste disposal, back pain, horses, and I enjoy sitting quietly in the mornings waiting for my brain to slowly come back on line. I make a fire, put water on the woodstove for coffee and wait for it to heat the water and me. This morning it was 5:30 before I noticed it was snowing and we already had four inches. I had stepped out into the open part of the barn several times to get wood and feed the horses and hadn't noticed. You can tell I am not much more awake than people who are still snoring in these early hours.

This particular batch of snow was the big fluffy dry sort that piles up quick but is easy to walk through and no work at all to shovel. The type a big woosh with a broom sends flying out of the way.

The snow was kind of surprising since the forecast on two different websites and the radio had promised a sunny day. I turned on the radio to listen to the weatherman admit he missed the forecast. Weathermen usually don't live in your area any more and this one is in Atlanta. He was admitting that the downeast area might get an inch. I checked the accuweather website. No mention at all of snow there. I figured the snow would end soon so I woke Kris up.

We like sitting together by the fire and looking out the window on snowy mornings. We sat for a couple more hours and waited for the snow to stop. The clouds parted a little but it was still snowing. At 7:30 I turned the radio back on and the weatherman was still only admitting an inch. I had swept the boards stacked on the saw horses off yesterday and there was now six inches covering them and it was still coming down. Last week they had closed nearly every school in the state on the prediction of less snow than this.

When it finally stopped we had seven inches of snow and it was gorgeous out. We couldn't wait to get out for a walk and look at natures handiwork. We were'nt disappointed. The sun was out and snow falling from the trees made it like walking in one of those glass domed Christmas things you shake up and watch the snow swirl. After the walk we came back inside and I turned on the radio. The weatherman was still claiming an inch of snow was all you could expect before it cleared. This particular weatherman claims to have a 97% accuracy. It is easy to do if you just never acknowledge any variation from the forecast.

My favorite is the stormcenter TV broadcasts where they send the reporter out to some street corner in Bangor or Portland and cut away live to see the snow coming down. The music and tone of the reporters make a few inches of snow seem life threatening and only their daring broadcast in the face of such danger can keep you informed and safe. Kris and I don't have TV and usuallly are not aware just how near death we are. Snow coming quietly out of the sky seems pretty inviting to us and we usually just go for a walk during snowstorms. If its windy we bundle up. I have noticed the reporters which the TV stations send are usually cute young women who wear brightly colored ski jackets -no hats-just ear muffs. Evidently, these dedicated and daring reporters are not going to let a weather related cataclysmic event ruin their hairdoes.

The truth is natural disasters are good television and if you don't have a big one maybe you can make the one you have seem a little bigger. Hey, you don't think they are doing that with global warming do you? No, I don't thinks so either. I am absolutely positive that whenever a dire prediction by a climatologist doesn't happen, it is reported with the same ferver it was originally and as a man of science, the climatologist fights to expose his failed predictions with the equal zeal. The weatherman claiming an inch of snow instead of the seven we actually got will,I am sure, be on tomorrow pointing out his mistake, right?