Snow Day

Snow today. The tub is full of water in case the power goes out. It is that kind of snow but so far there isn't that much of it. Usually for the power to go out for days (6 days is the longest so far), it takes a couple feet of snow. This is still in inches but it is that nice, sticky, groans under the feet and sticks to the trees snow, and they say there is more coming.

My windows are among the many recycled things in my home. Nice, double paned argon (or something) filled panes, they were taken out of a Ramada Inn in Georgia. Actually, I think they were new and the wrong size but at any rate, they were sitting outside of it waiting for the trash truck when someone I knew bought them and we got them from him.

If you've really built a house you know windows are about a third of the cost, maybe more. Shamefull really. So we had access to these panes and also in our reading at that time read that windows were designed to do three things, none of them enhanced by the other: let in light; allow for ventillation; and keep out the weather. The point was that a window might do any one of these things well, but to combine them cut the effectiveness of all.

So our windows let in light and keep out the weather. They don't move.That meant we could construct them ourselves. Ventillation is provided by a bung between pairs of windows -- a bung that can be insulated in winter or screened in summer.

These windows are tall and narrow and put up in pairs, a pair in my mind making one "window". But it is the view from these windows that continues to intrigue me. Each one is like a double watercolor painting, but endlessly changing. In the spring it is grey and chartruese; the summer sees a multitude of hues of green that if you unfocus your eyes all run together; fall provides a rainbow from red maples to purple gums to the pines staying green to everything else yellowing then browning.

And all this always has a scaffolding of brown and grey vertical elements with lots of texture added in the barks. In the winter this scaffolding becomes the painting itself, stark and striking. And now it is all shaded with the white of snow, the hemlocks and pines drooping, the deciduous trees coated centinals.

So the tub is full of water and the ricks full of wood and the animals are by the new haybale and it is a magnificent February snow. The kids are already out playing in it, making snow men and sledding and bringing snowballs in to eat. Supper is planned, the day's tasks outlined, the radio is on my favorite country music station, and, well, it is just all just so pleasant.

And in less than a week, we're supposed to see sixty degrees again. That's also pleasantly in my thoughts.