It’s
no secret that winter is a trying time for humans, critters, and the land
itself. Here in Vermont, winter dominates our lives—and in many cases, provides
our livelihoods.
Certain
elements can be relied on, year after year: Cold. Snow. Ice. Darkness. Within
those parameters, every winter differs in what, how much, and when.
This
year, we’ve had the most wintery season of recent times, starting early and
promising to run late (though hopefully shorter than the whopper we had a
decade ago, with snow on the ground from October into May!). It has presented
the gamut of conditions, in rapid succession, hitting extremes. But that
includes one of the rare happier moments, which came and went, appropriately,
on Valentine’s Day.
It
began with a nor’easter that dumped two-plus feet of powder over two days.
Yikes! By nightfall the second day, the storm had moved on and clouds parted to
present a full moon casting silver glow and sparkle across a flawless blanket
of white. Objects on the ground were either buried or simplified into rounded
contours. No tracks, no movement; all life in suspension.
By
morning much of the landscape would be chewed up by plows and shovels and footprints,
and stained by salt and sand. But this night, for a few hours, we had the most
beautiful combination of light, shadow, color, and shape that the season can
produce.
Calendar-wise,
it’s just past the halfway point of the season. The forecast is for another
subzero dip followed by days above freezing, beginning the long, sputtering,
terminal thaw. So what I witnessed, I think, was the exact moment of the season’s
pendulum swing to its farthest point: a pause before the backswing toward
spring.
