I've looked at snow "from both sides now, from up and down" to quote the great Joni Mitchel, but I do know snow. I grew up in Manitoba.
Huge sloppy flakes, tiny beads that sting your face, curtains of snow, drifts of snow, hard layers of city snow like prehistoric layered ice and earth, soft snow that you fall back into without fear; crystal snow that creeps with icy fingers onto your neck between your parka and your scarf; that freezes your toes in your ice skates; that burns your face, cuts deep into your wrists just above your mitts and numbs your silly nyloned legs on the way to school.
And I see it. I see how it transforms my garden, my city, my street. I long to see it more often at the lake where we spend so much of our summer.
I know the colours of snow in light and in the dark. I know the long shadows that fall across it: clear shades of blue; dust gray, mouse brown, sun pink, green tinged, sheer frosted white, and dirty sand brown. And when it begins to melt I recognize the pockmarks than deepen in the snow that mean a thaw is at work.
I know snow's indescribable smells - early snow that smell of earth and sun - and late snow in the city with the dark moist smells of tar and sand. At the lake cottage there will be the smell pine and the echoes of mouldering leaves feeding the earth below. I've tasted snow. I've felt it, formed it and built with it.
My memories of lake visits always start with cross country skiing in; of the cottage floor and walls covered in frost until the fire gets hot enough to warm the wood; cutting and bashing through ice for water; snowshoeing through the woods dodging clumps of snow that slide off the spruce and balsam trees onto knitted caps and shoulders, and the whap whap of it falling off our warming roof to the ground below. Most of all, the deep silence broken only now and again by hushed breezes and distant bird chirrups in the night.
Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;
The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,
Cold has seized the birds' wings;
Season of ice, this is my news."
- Irish poem, 9th Century
My Street in early winter
copyright Margaret Buffie
City Garden
"Nature has undoubtedly mastered the art of
winter gardening and even the most experienced gardener can learn from the unrestrained beauty around them."
- Vincent A. Simeone
"I've been a dweller on the plains,
have sighed when summer days were gone;
No more I'll sigh; for winter here
Hath gladsome gardens of his own."
- Dorothy Wordsworth,
Garden gate
© Margaret Buffie
Still morning
© Margaret Buffie
The arbour that separates our two gardens
© Margaret Buffie
Icicles outside my studio window, overlooking the garden
© Margaret Buffie
Iced Alyssum Flowers
© Margaret Buffie
Through my studio window - late afternoon
© Margaret Buffie
My little winter hummingbird
© Margaret Buffie
Frosted leaves
© Margaret Buffie
The snow cones of cone flowers
© Margaret Buffie
Cotoneaster berries with frozen drops of water.
I can see myself in one of the drops
© Margaret Buffie
Sage and ladybug held in deep frost
© Margaret Buffie
Early morning snow on my veranda stairs
leading to the street. No mailman yet, to scar the smoothness
© Margaret Buffie
Drifts of shadow waves near the river
© Margaret Buffie
Early morning visitor
© Margaret Buffie
Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness; now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow.
David Thoreau
Swathes of snow, constantly changing shades
and movement - yet all done in complete silence.
Margaret Buffie
Shades of crystal blue
© Margaret Buffie
Stairway fence
© Margaret Buffie
"Ski slope" in my garden
© Margaret Buffie
Frost
It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake,
the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam.
This crisp winter air is full of it.
John Burroughs
“December's wintery breath is already clouding
the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer's memory...”
John Geddes
Behind a frosted window I see a small creature peering in at me.
© Margaret Buffie
Another visitor waiting behind the frost,
white shoulders gleaming..
© Margaret Buffie
Moon Flowers
© Margaret Buffie
Dancing Frost
© Margaret Buffie
A little forest of frost
© Margaret Buffie
Knitted frost
© Margaret Buffie
Feathered Frost with Hidden Figure
© Margaret Buffie
Early Winter at the Cabin
Balsam cast in ice-white amber
© Margaret Buffie
Stone and Ice
© Margaret Buffie
Headdress
© Margaret Buffie
A breath of wind will puff it all away
© Margaret Buffie
The log cabin in hiding
© Margaret Buffie
Going to a snow ball
© Margaret Buffie
The old dock
© Margaret Buffie
Soon the ice will come and as it
deepens and thickens,
it with twist its wooden back.
© Margaret Buffie
Heading out for a walk
© Margaret Buffie
Settling in
"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." Ruth Stout
© Margaret Buffie
"Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather
golden moments, embark upon a sentimental
journey, and enjoy every idle hour. "
John Boswell
Neighbourhood "Walks"
The shed of leaves became a cascade of red and gold and after a time the trees stood skeletal against a sky of weathered tin. The land lay bled of its colors. The nights lengthened, went darker, brightened in their clustered stars. The chilled air smelled of woodsmoke, of distances and passing time. James Carlos Blake
Earliest snows soften the leaves
© Margaret Buffie
Hatted fence soldiers on guard
© Margaret Buffie
Garnished ice branch
© Margaret Buffie
Light but relentless snow all night long
© Margaret Buffie
The artist of winter chisels silver icicles just for me
© Margaret Buffie
Shadow me - between two elm trunks
© Margaret Buffie
The days are getting long, the shadows longer still. The sun is warmer on my back. My boots are dripping and damp. Spring is creeping toward me.
Margaret Buffie
© Margaret Buffie
Ending with one of my favourite quotes about winter!
Winter is the king of showmen,
Turning tree stumps into snowmen
And houses into birthday cakes
And spreading sugar over lakes.
Smooth and clean and frosty white,
The world looks good enough to bite.
That’s the season to be young,
Catching snowflakes on your tongue.
Snow is snowy when it’s snowing,
I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.
~Ogden Nash
