Memories of snows past...

My younger brother was born January 23, 1967, just before the BIG snow. I was just 4 at the time, but my memories of the giant mounds of snow - everywhere - are quite vivid.

The photo isn't of our house -- I can't find one of those -- but it is from the '67 snow. You have to look closely, but there is a boy standing on the pile of snow on the right side of the photo. (Doesn't that look like fun!)


Dad built a hill of snow at the side of the garage that made a sledding hill extending from the top of the garage on down. I have seen the pictures of my sister and I standing in our snow suits next to the giant hill, perhaps wondering where mom was, and why we were having to eat so many hard boiled eggs... (dad was not much of a cook)

We would have been too young to understand that mom was stuck at the hospital, having been conscripted to work as a nurse's aid since the hospital was short-staffed due to the storm! There was no way for dad to get to Evanston Hospital to bring her and our baby brother home.

I have a clear memory of the 1979 snow because we didn't have to go to school for at least a couple of days, so a friend and I put our snow pants on and went trudging through the town. We visited other friends, stopping in their homes for hot cocoa and cookies, and trying to talk them into joining us on our trek.

Today, the news reports are that a similar storm ("blizzard") is on its way Tuesday night and into Wednesday. Possibly 18 inches in 24 hours, on top of the 6 inches expected tonight. Sounds like a good reason for a snow day - or two!!

Enjoy!!

Why does it snow?

Do you ever wonder why it snows?

With the regular snow events that we've had since early December, I find myself thinking about snow - where it comes from and why it falls...

Well, the simple explanation is that we get snow when moisture falls from the clouds and the air is below freezing, so the water falls in a frozen state.

Actually, it is so cold up in the clouds that all rain starts out as snow, but then it thaws on the way down.

According to a short article on The Weather Predictor website, ice crystals form in clouds, and as they stick to each other, eventually they become heavy enough that they fall.

If the air is warm enough on the way down, the ice crystals (aka snow flakes) turn into rain drops. If the air temperature is just above freezing, the snowflakes partly melt and we get sleet. And if the air is below freezing, then we get snow!

Now, snow takes up a lot more space than rain. In fact, on average, a 10" snow fall, if melted, would yield about an inch of water. So, when we get a couple inches of snow, and traffic gets all messed up -- cars in the ditch, skidding on the slick pavement -- that is an amount of water equivalent to less than a quarter inch of rain.

John Fowles' Tree

In 1979, author John Fowles released his non-fiction book "The Tree." Coming from the author of The French Lieutenant's Woman, this sweet little book must have surprised many.

The writing style is pure Fowles - densely packed with sensuous descriptions of his life in England - but the subject matter is unexpected.

Using his experiences with trees growing up and living in both urban and rural England, he expertly tells a story of the interdependence of humankind, art and nature.

Thirty years ago, he was asking questions that we have yet to answer. How do we heal the disconnect between people and nature? Are doing nature a disservice when we try to explain it using science, rather than appreciating it as we do great art?

Nature is much more than the sum of its parts, just as a Picasso is more than brush strokes on canvas.

What would it say about us if we took all of the works of poetry ever written and gathered them together to destroy them? Fowles felt that this is exactly what we were doing to the natural world. Taking the amazing, complex and original creation that was given to us, and destroying it -- consciously, deliberately, knowingly denying future generations the opportunity to enjoy and experience things that we have had the chance to know.

It's quite barbaric, actually, when one stops to think about it.

He offers no answers, at least nothing explicitly stated. But, as with a Fowles' novel, answers are there on the periphery, at the edge of consciousness. That place that lies between dream and reality, where truth is often found.

For Fowles, the secret to nature lies in the woods. As he explains, woods are quite elusive to the artist, whether she be writer or photographer. The reason is that the complexity of any woodland can never be captured in its entirety - it can only be experienced by the individual.

That seems the crux of the challenge we face in changing the prevailing relationship between humankind and nature: there is not one answer - there are as many answers as there are individuals.