• Tag Archives snow

  • A Brane Teaser?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                         Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    You may go now, the storm has ended.  Well, maybe.  The MIA, noted for never closing, closed yesterday and today.  The metrodome collapsed.  See.  We told you.  Zyggi Wilf and family.  I threw thigh high snow off our front sidewalk and trimmed down a waist high drift on our deck so the dogs could get out and come back.  Roughly a foot fell, always hard to measure.

    A local meterologist developed the gold standard for measuring snow depth.  He puts a hard rubber mat on the ground, lets the snow fall on it, then pushes a yardstick through the snow.  Check where the top of the snow meets the yard stick.  Voila!  No kidding.

    Snowapocalypse.  Snowmaggedon.  Snowmygod.  Local weather weenies tried to raise this to mega-event standards, but it just doesn’t get there.  Yes, we’re a major metro area and a foot to a foot and a half (south) makes the metro pretty miserable for travelers, but our snow totals are no record breakers.

    We do have a difference from a lot of other snowy locations.  When our snow comes in winters like this one, it cools the air above it and remains on the ground until spring.  That means accumulating snow fall becomes a challenge with parking lot snow mountains rising up like retail Himalayas and city streets sometimes going from two-sided parking to one-sided.  It begins to get interesting then.

    Is there a collapse vortex near this location?  Perhaps a quantum field breaking through into what we conceive of as the one and only true reality?  I mean, it’s a brane teaser I know, but it could be.  Think of the many worlds hypothesis favored by string theorists.  Why do I ask?  Well. This next picture, taken less than half a mile from the site of the dome collapse tells the story.


    📂This entry was posted in Commentary on the news Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Snow. Deep.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                       Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    The orchard has at least two feet of snow.  The currant bushes have snow near the top of their branches.  The blueberry beds have almost disappeared.  The garlic lies now beneath a couple of feet of snow cover in the vegetable garden, as do the strawberries and the asparagus.  The bees have huddled up in their balls, all three colonies, rubbing against each other, creating warmth, keeping the colony at 93 degrees, maintaining body heat for the cold blooded individuals, the whole acting as a warm-blooded animal, using their mutual metabolisms to fend off the cold.  There are, too, all the bulbs, the ones planted this fall and those planted in years past, resting now, waiting for the signals, still months away, that will send them seeking sun and warmth.

    Out the window shown in the pictures below I often see chickadees and sparrows scurrying from one warren of shrubs to another.  A rabbit or two come by at some point in the winter, as the chipmunks did earlier in the fall.  A squirrel dug a burrow in the snow near the end of November, coming and going several times.  I have not heard the great gray the last two nights, perhaps she’s out hunting in other places.

    This is a Minnesota winter, the kind most of us here know well.  I’m glad to see it.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Garden permaculture Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • An Insider’s View

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                  Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    We are in the midst of a storm that will be remembered, one like Halloween, 1991 and Armistice Day, 1941.  The snow and the wind have continued or intensified since I remarked last night that the snow had begun.

    Below are a series of photographs taken out of my study window facing north, some looking out over one of our boulder walls.  The last two are from today.

    6702010-10-26_0477

    October 26th, 2010

    6702010-11-14_04742

    November 14th

    6702010-12-01_0471

    December 1st

    6702010-12-11_0488 December 11th

    6702010-12-11_0494 December 11th, northeast


    📂This entry was posted in Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Restored Wonder

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                             Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    “The one common experience of all humanity is the challenge of problems.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

    Once again, awake.  I know why this time.  Over stimulation.  The interview process at the Sierra Club has my head cranking over time, weighing this aspect and that, noodling out the implications, going over what ifs.  I’m familiar with this kind of insomnia, it happened a lot when I worked for the Presbytery, particularly when I had several projects in the air all at the same time, which was the norm rather than the exception.  Leaves my jaw a bit achy, not so good with my still healing wisdom teeth extraction.

    This is my (now mild) neurosis at work, continuing to work over nuances, much like the front tires on the Celica last night, trying, trying, trying, but gaining no traction, spinning in place, unable to move forward and accomplishing nothing moving backward.

    Added to the interviews, of course, was the commute home last night and my sling-shot derby trying to use momentum to move my car up the slope of our driveway.  Last night after I closed out my blog for the evening, our neighbor, Pam Perlick, called and offered a berth in her garage so our plow guy could work unobstructed.  A kind and thoughtful offer which I accepted.  That meant putting back on jeans, boots, parka, hat and gloves, taking my Berea College whisk broom out and sweeping two new inches off the car before moving it to safe haven.

    The night was dark and cold, the snow swept up and swirled as it fell.  Once outside, as is often true, I found the storm exhilarating, especially since Pam’s gesture meant the Celica would not interfere with the snow removal.  I could embrace the cold and the falling snow for what it was, rather than for the problems it brought into my life.

    Based on NOAA weather spotter’s it appears we got another 5 inches of snow.  Which would square with my guess.   Snow shapes itself to the objects on which it lands, often in unusual, even bizarre shapes.   I’ll put out some photographs today, once it becomes light.

    These kind of storms and the deep cold of January define the north for me.  They’re why I’m here and why I love this state so much, so I’m happy my neighbor restored my wonder.  Thanks, Pam.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Friends Great Work Politics Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Good Tired

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                   Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    Two days of interviews plus a tour day and all the attendant driving, 3 trips in and back, has left me with a good tired feeling.  Participating on a hiring committee puts me in the guts of an organization again.  I like that, even if it is only a volunteers part.  It’s true, though, that in my work with the Presbytery much of my work came in situations where I had an extra-organizational role in what was happening, so this is not so different from that.

    My embarrassment of riches tour today went well.  Three folks came along and we spent our way wandering through the whole exhibit, talking and oohing and awing right along.  I like this smaller, adult tour where we can work it as a casual stroll, thinking together about the art, offering ideas as we go along.  I have two Thaw tours next week and I’m hoping for a better performance than with the Rochester Friends.

    Another snow storm appears imminent, coming tomorrow night and Saturday.  Thankfully I don’t have a commitment outside in that time frame.  That way the driveway can get plowed, I can do the sidewalk and spread granite grit if necessary afterward.  I’ll be able to enjoy the snow this time.

    One of these days, when life slows down a little bit, I need to get the chainsaw out and take out the cedar and the amur maples broken by the first heavy snowfall.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Great Work Politics Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Emergence

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                       Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    One of those days.  Snow brought our first drive way clearing by John Sutton, but not until both Kate and I had left.  I did the sidewalk.

    The drive into the Sierra Club took about 15 minutes longer than usual, but I made it to the first interview on time.  I spent the next 3 hours with Michelle and Margaret as I will tomorrow, interviewing candidates for the Sierra Club policy position.  One candidate referred to us as the big boys at the State Capitol.  Hitch up those britches and let’s get to work.

    On the way in and back I’m listening, as I mentioned yesterday, to lectures on Big History.  A topic important to Big History and important to me is the quality of emergence, a key mark of complexity, the theme that holds all the various epochs since the big bang together.  Emergence refers to qualities that become evident only after two or more other elements combine in some patterned way.  The easy example is hydrogen and oxygen.  Examine the two of them separately and you would not come up with the emergent proper that comes when you combine two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in a certain way.  Water.  Another, more complex example, is a human.  The individual constituents of the body, chemically, do not suggest the possibility of life if combined.

    Emergence fascinates me because it is used by a few thinkers to reimagine the sacred.  I’m not sure the exact line of thought but it has my attention right now.

    Then, when I got home, to a plowed driveway, I slipped and slid my car into a snowbank, a snowbank we had paid John Sutton to create.  This entailed a trip to the hardware store for granite grit, a session with Warren, my neighbor, who came to my aid with a tow rope, then scattering grit on the slope of our driveway.  Then, finally, I could get the car in the garage.  Minnesota is a place where sometimes getting the car in the garage at night is an accomplishment.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Great Work Our Land and Home Weather +Climate World History 📎and tagged

  • Heavy, Man, Heavy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                           Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    File under the things we do for love.  Kate asked me, as a big favor, if I would clear the sidewalk and a path to the mailbox.  I agreed albeit reluctantly. Never again.  This type of snow, laden with water, dense and prone to packing tight when moved, is just too hard for me to clear.  It clogs up the snowblower, so the snowblower’s out.  Lifting it is beyond my frame’s capacity.  I knew it, but I did it anyhow.  Ouch.

    The snow took off the top of the cedar tree’s other trunk, too, so the whole thing will need to come down.  That means the chain saw, sometime soon.  That, I can do.

    After pushing some snow around, I harvested the last of the leeks, fine looking vegetables.  The greens, kale and chard in particular, will continue growing until the ground freezes, so I’ll probably have one more harvest from them, too.

    Most of the morning I tried to pack in some material not too different from the heavy snow:  Latin participles.  As participles, they share in the attributes of both the adjective–meaning declensions–and verbs–meaning tense and voice.  In addition the participles tense does not follow the verbs because the participle can cue action either concurrent, before or after the action of the verb.  In addition, just to confuse things, the present tense and the passive future tense use the verbs present tense stem to form the participle while the future tense and the passive perfect tense use the participle stem.  Yikes.

    I know, I know.  I’m doing this on purpose.  I’m just venting.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Humanities Literature Our Land and Home Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Cooking on A Snowy Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                                 Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

    A nap, then, making more chicken pot pies.  I have the various skills down now, so I make it up.  This one has a leek, onion, garlic bottom with a layer of chicken topped with corn and peas, all drenched in thickened chicken stock made from Kate’s boiling the chickens.  40 minutes or so in the oven and we have  future lunches, dinners ready to freeze and one ready to eat.  A lot of standing, the only part about it I don’t like.  Otherwise the cooking is a creative act for me, one I enjoy.

    I haven’t been outside today since I will neither shovel nor plow these thick snows, heart attack snow.  It’s just too clumsy and heavy.  Besides, the snow will melt before it is anything more than a nuisance.  Glad we live in the burbs where we have no sidewalk on days like this.

    Looked over my plan for my Thaw tour and I plan to keep it the same.  I’m not sure what happened last Thursday.  Might have been first time through jitters or somehow the chemistry between me and the group didn’t click.  Something.  If it happens again, I’ll assume it’s something to do with the tour. Then I’ll look at change.  Of course, I’ll still be in the equation.  Wherever you go, there you are.

    A friend is in this photograph in front of the Swedish Institute.  He’s on the left in the blue vest.  This is the Minnesota Santas group at their pre-season social event.  What would a five year old think?


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Cooking Friends Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • As It Is, So Shall It Be

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                         Waning Cold Moon

    We have hoarfrost on fences, tree limbs, shed roofs.  I looked out yesterday afternoon and it fell to the ground like snow from two big cottonwoods.  Shrubs appear limned in light as the morning sun refracts through the hoarfrost on their branches.  We have a white, soft landscape that carries the long shadows of morning in their full definition.

    This February has been outspoken in its winter voice.  The woodchuck in Pennsylvania saw his shadow, so we might have a February and early March filled with cold and snow.  That’s ok with me.

    I’ve been waiting for the gardening bug to hit me, usually it happens around New Years.  It did a bit.  I got a couple of seed catalogs and spent time sifting through them.  Then, however, the feeling went away, submerged I guess by the unrelenting nature of this seasons winter.  Kate says it’ll return and I hope she’s right.  We’ve got a lot of garden that will need care soon, well, relatively soon.

    Meanwhile I get messages from Mexico, Georgia, Singapore and Bangkok, places where winter either never happens or lands with a light brush.  Watching Burn Notice last night I felt for the first time a pang of envy at the easy way the characters moved the Miami climate.

    It’s been a busy time for me, something I generally embrace, but I also love downtime.  I’d better not keep writing here or I’m going to write myself into a fit of melancholy, not what I want or need right now.  So, Vale, amici!


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Garden Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Latin at Home with Snow

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                     Waning Cold Moon

    If any of you want to hear about Blue Cloud Abbey, you need to know that I have experienced technical difficulties.  If and when I resolve them, I’ll post the retreat notes.

    I let the snow going fast past my window and the MNDOT warnings and the weather predictions convince me driving in to St. Paul was not wise.  My eyes and I don’t find night driving compatible in snowy weather.  Headed out to Blue Cloud we drove for about an hour in the dark.  The snow coming straight at the headlights hypnotizes me, not a good state for driving.

    Instead I worked out, ate supper, played with the dogs and got through the vocabulary in chapter 4 of Wheelock.  This chapter has second declension neuter nouns, predicate nouns and adjectives and the irregular verb sum.  This verb, whose infinitive is esse=to be, is irregular, just like in English and has to be memorized.

    That was a full evening anyhow.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Humanities Letters Weather +Climate 📎and tagged