Snowbound!

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent,
And soft,
And slow
Descends
The snow.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - my first and favorite poet thrills me every time it snows with his lines - 'Silent and soft and slow, Descends the snow'. What a gift to be able to paint a picture with words.

Well, right on cue as we closed the Christmas season, the winter season jumped upon us. As I sit at my desk looking out the window across the field, I can't see anything but white. No houses, no road, no soccer storage shed, are in view.

Birds are being blown past my window on their way to the feeder and there is one lonely large bird digging in the snow trying to get down to the dirt for a snack. It may be the young grackle that I saw on my porch rail the other day. I wondered how it was going to eat. Grackles don't do seeds.

Snowbound! One word that paints many pictures: bread baking, soup simmering, hot chocolate and cookies; crunching in the snow to fill the feeders; curling up with an afghan and a book (probably Snowbound by Whittier). It used to paint a picture of snow shovels and snow blowers, but that isn't needed at our new place. We can just open the curtains wide and enjoy the experience and spectacular view.

Living in a new place leads to learning many new things and to many new questions. For instance, the weather forecasts around here are hard to figure out. 5-7 inches of snow today, 1-3 tomorrow, and more the next day. That I understand - but 'freezing fog' is something I never heard of before and is something that I can't even imagine. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

In the meanwhile, I am going to try to find something for the poor grackle to eat. What do you think - peanut butter and raisins?