Posts Tagged With: winter
Four Photos of Ice
Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, ice, nature, photography, quill gordon, Vermont, winter
2 Comments
Quill’s Poetry Corner
It’s still ten below at ten o’clock and the first pot of coffee just kicked in, half-way through the second. A hoary morning, for sure, and even though the sun shines bright through a clear lens of chill arctic air, dark shadows loom, stretching northward across the ice, clawing for purchase while being drawn slowly south.
I’ll go back out, soon enough, but for now I am content to sit across from a south-facing window and study poetry. Everyone could benefit from a little poetry now and then, so I share with you now what I am reading today.
Lines Upon a Tranquil Brow
by Walt Kelly
Have you ever,
while pondering the ways of the morn,
thought to save just a bit,
just a drop in the horn,
to pour in the evening or late afternoon
or during the night when we’re
shining the moon?
Have you ever cried out,
while counting the snow,
while watching the tomtit warble
hello …
“Break out the cigars, this life
is for squirrels;
we’re off to the drugstore
to whistle at girls”
(Used with love, but not permission)
Categories: Humor, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, Humor, poetry, pogo, quill gordon, walt kelly, winter
7 Comments
Thank You for Littering
A large part of Vermont’s economy depends on visits by people from other places. Her summers are bucolic, her fall foliage is legendary and, in winter, skiers flock to her slopes from miles around (spring is a tortuous slog through mud and black flies, better left unmentioned). After half the state was turned inside-out and strewn about the countryside by Tropical Storm Irene, I beat the drum as best I could and encouraged people to visit and maybe spend a little cash to help get us going again and, after what has been a mild, brown start to winter, I am happy to welcome our first real snow and the economic shot in the arm that comes with it.
There are perhaps four permanent residences on our hill, but there are twice that many second homes and vacation get aways. Some of those houses are rented out, short term, to people who come to ski at one of the nearby resorts. This weekend, every unfamiliar vehicle going up and down our road has had New Jersey plates.
Our road is not much, by most anyone’s standards. Mud in the spring, bumpy, rutted dirt in summer and fall, I think it is actually at its best in winter, when it is covered with a nice, hard layer of packed snow and ice, topped by a sprinkling of sand.
When this particular group of people from New Jersey is here, there is also a sprinkling of litter.
Come on, man.
They’re kind of wearing out their welcome. Maybe one cup doesn’t make a difference along a road in New Jersey, what with everyone throwing trash out their windows, but around here it sticks out like a sore thumb. So do they.
What follows was originally posted as a three-parter but, inspired by the love I feel today toward the residents of the Garden State, I have dusted it off, changed the formatting, and cleaned it up, presenting it now, as a gift to the Chamber of Commerce. Continue reading
Snow Wraiths
The Outdoor Blogger Network’s most recent photo prompt is “The Look of Winter.” A week ago I would have posted a photo of brown woods and green ice. Today, I post this:
Fish in a Barrel Pond, January 13, 2012
One 1250th of a second. A random snippet of time, an instant, now long gone — never to occur again — but preserved forever in cyber space. Weird.
That image says something, conveys a feeling, suggests a mood, but it is just one tiny note in an opus. This little opus here is a bit more than 150,000 notes long:
Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, nature, outdoor blogger network, outdoor photo prompt, quill gordon, snow, snow wraiths, Vermont, winter
5 Comments
A Package from Sweden and Another Story Not About Fishing
The internet allows us to communicate with, and get to know, people who live far away, in distant lands. There are times it almost doesn’t seem real. I fire up my computer and there you all are, your words and pictures on my screen any time I want. Wires, electricity, zeroes and ones combine to produce a wondrous illusion, instantaneously, allowing us to share words, pictures, and more with people we may never know in person, wherever in the world they may be.
Back in December, Marc Fauvet, of Limp Cobra fame, announced The Friggin’ Awesome Limp Cobra Holiday Photo Contest!, with the only requirement being that said photo must have a fly in it. The results of the contest can be seen HERE. The real winner was Ulf Börjesson, who takes wonderful photos and keeps the blog [Mad] Trout, but he declined, allowing my photo to move from second place to first!
We know a digital image can travel thousands of miles in a matter of seconds but how long does it take for a DVD to travel from Sweden to Vermont? Thanks to Marc and Ulf, we know the answer to that question: Three friggin’ weeks!
I am looking forward to watching this one and trying out some of what it has to offer. Perhaps I’ll do a review in a few weeks. Thanks again, Marc and Ulf!
******
With winter’s banshees pummeling the windows and moaning at the door, the Shack Nasties lurk in dark corners. They follow me across the dooryard as I go about my chores and huddle with me beneath my blankets when I come back in, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, reminding me of far-away spring and a distant, misty, evening rise.
Screw the Shack Nasties, Cabin Fever, or what ever you want to call it. Here is a story, not about fishing:
When I was a kid, going to the mall was a special treat. A world unto itself, the mall was a new concept and my family went to walk and gawk as much as to shop, joining the throngs that circulated through the climate-controlled, concrete, chrome and glass corridors like schools of fish. Whenever I became separated from the rest of our little group, my parents knew where to find me because there was one thing in that giant Church of the Almighty Dollar that invariably drew me in, like a moth to a flame. Somehow, I always ended up in front of the County Seat Jeans Emporium, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the gargantuan pair of pants hanging from the ceiling inside. My nine-year-old mind was absolutely boggled by the size of those pants. It was humbling to realize that the mall was a place where anyone could get anything they needed, but I shuddered as I imagined the person who needed those pants. Those pants weren’t just Levi’s. They were leviathan. My parents assured me that those giant pants were a joke and that no one could possibly need pants so large, and for years I believed them. Until I met Robbie Brown. Continue reading
Categories: Humor, Winter
Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing, ghoti62, how long for a package to get from Sweden to Vermont, Humor, Limp Cobra, Marc Fauvet, quill gordon, ulf borjesson, winter
8 Comments
On the Last Afternoon of the Year
Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, ice, nature, photography, quill gordon, Vermont, winter
9 Comments
And So This is Winter
As if on cue, rain started to fall shortly after I began writing A Pause in the Wobble the other day. As I wrote, the ice went from being hard, like thick glass, to something softer and more pliable, like plastic, as a giant puddle formed across its surface.
The rain that fell could only spread out across the level sheet and the mild air kept it from freezing, creating a lake on top of a lake.
(True story: I once had to transport a queen-size bed halfway across the state of Vermont and then across a mile and a half of ice on Lake Champlain. Used a pickup truck and, of course, it rained. It rained a lot. It rained so much there was six inches of water standing on the ice when we got there so I walked the entire way, slipping and splashing, looking for holes, while Mrs. Gordon and her brother followed slowly in the truck, doors open and seat belts off, just in case. Kind of like Ice Road Truckers, but with a lot more screaming. Mrs. Gordon was a little upset, too.)
The images above are just not what one would expect to see in Vermont a few days before Christmas, but as quickly as things changed the other night, they changed again last night and these are some pictures I took when I went out this morning: Continue reading
Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter
Tags: changing weather, ghoti62, ice, nature, photography, quill gordon, snow, Vermont, winter
17 Comments
A Pause in the Wobble
The winter solstice marks the return of lengthening days and we talk about more hours of light but, in reality, the difference between today and tomorrow will be measured in seconds. It’s a slow retreat from the darkness but those seconds add up and around here, at this time of year, we take what we can get, especially with the truly cold time still ahead.
The word “solstice” actually refers to the sun seeming to stand still, as today is essentially the same length as yesterday and yesterday was as short as the day before that. The days have been growing progressively shorter, and we know they will be growing longer, but first there is a pause. The earth wobbles on its axis, tilting us away from the sun and then back again, giving us our grand procession of seasons, and this pause is probably a good thing. If it didn’t take three full days to reverse the direction of the tilt, crash helmets and other protective gear would probably be the hot gifts of the season.
In June, the solstice days bring long, dreamy twilights and short nights that brighten into leisurely dawns. The days shorten noticeably from there — more quickly, it seems, than they lengthen from here — and thoughts of winter creep in, just like the no-see-ums of summer at the cuffs of my sleeves. It might seem strange, trying to remember where I put the snow shovel while waiting for mayflies to hatch, but it’s no stranger than thinking about then, now. Remembering June comes easily on an overcast December day that couldn’t get cranked up to much more than dim. Continue reading
13 Photos of Ice
Back in the beaver ponds the ice is flat and sometimes the water level drops before it can freeze all the way across.
Most years we don’t get to see the ice like this. Most years we have snow and it’s all covered up. Continue reading
Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, ice, nature, photography, quill gordon, Vermont, winter
5 Comments
It’s Hard, Man
I told myself the other day that, with not more than 5/8 of the lake surface frozen, there was still plenty of time left to fish. I told myself the next morning I should have fished the day before.
Categories: Fly Fishing, Humor, Winter
Tags: Fly Fishing, ghoti62, Humor, ice, Limp Cobra, Marc Fauvet, nature, quill gordon, Vermont, winter
1 Comment
The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 