When the sun rises, cuts a glare right through a haze-filled halo, and fans its rays out over a shiny white land, making you squint in respond to its brilliance, you don’t get all excited.
More than anything, it’s a sign, an omen: you just know it spells trouble. Trouble in weather-land, that is.
Even the woodpecker chipping away on the trunk outside got the memo: It’s friggin’ freezing, so the only way to get warmed up is by pecking away at an almighty speed. Maybe I should take up wood-pecking.
This is what -29 (with a wind chill that brings it closer to -40) looks like. Shimmering feathered crystals. Nature, even in winter, can be soooo pretty. As long as I am indoors, with no pressing need to step outside.
Is it any wonder that a top news story this week, out of the US, recounted how an escaped convict turned himself in to get in from the cold. Or that pipes froze; passengers were stranded; firewood, generators and, I imagine, packages of hot chocolate were sold out.
And when the Big Freeze gave way to the stupendously Big Thaw, streams of water ran through the streets, down driveways, into homes. Even the squirrels peeked out of their nests wondering if April had come early this year.
Then, in the great (more recently begun) tradition of northern winters going all wonky, we sunk back into tundra-living, the Big Chill returned overnight. Hence, the formula: Freeze + Thaw + Refreeze = Trouble.
We are living in yo-yo times, that’s for sure. I’d be content to have missed these times. That too is for sure. Bali won’t likely be seeing scenes like these anytime soon. Any wonder why I traded in this godforsaken island of ice for one in the tropics?!
Healing Pilgrim 
Yeah, I hear you. There are 3 things I like about winter. 1) it comes to an end
2&3) see # 1.
When do you return to Bali?
Winter = doesn’t end soon enough
Back to Bali? I wish it was yesterday, still in frozen limbo…
The photos are lovely, from here. I don’t think I’d be enjoying them much if I were the one behind the camera taking them! And speaking of pipes freezing…a dear friend in Minnesota posted photos on Facebook of her demolished home after the pipes froze and burst just this week. Bali may not be perfect, but it IS warm!
I’ll take imperfect heat over predictably numbingly icy cold any day 😉
In my teen years in Montreal I’d go into the bathroom and open the window wide and lean out to smoke. In January or February the thermometer would read minus 15 or 20, that was before the conversion to Celsius. To amuse myself while
puffing away I would spit onto the window sill and it would often freeze before landing a few inches away. Then there was the time in Ste. Agathe when I looked at the thermometer and it read minus 52! Set records. Birds fell from the trees. I’d spin the wonderful glass globe of the world that lit up with the pull of a small chain (a bar mitzvah present) close my eyes and stop the spinning with a finger always praying that it would be south of the equator.
And your prayers were duly answered: There you are… and here I am; thankfully, with no plans thus far to go “up north” 😉
Ah yes, the frozen spit-ball! My brother-in-law flicked straw-fuls of boiling water into the frozen air, and we watched as they immediately turned to vapor. What a sight!
I grew up on Long Island, New York but now live in the desert Southwest. I miss the beauty of the winter, looking out on it that is; but am certainly glad to be in a warmer place now.
Stay warm
Arlene