Posts Tagged With: winter

On Thin Ice

Posted on November 21, 2010 by Quill Gordon

(This Blog entry was my submission to a Sportsman Channel and Outdoor Blogger Network writing contest.)

A major credit card company had a contest, a few years back, in which one could win one’s own private island. The television commercials showed groups of very young, very attractive people partying down on a tropical beach, dancing the night away, without a care in the world. The magazine ads featured a white sand beach, turquoise water and palm trees, and all of the ads included the tag-line “What would you do?” Continue reading →

Categories: Humor, Vermont, Winter | Tags: ghoti62, Humor, ice, Lake Champlain, outdoor blogger network, quill gordon, Savage Island, sportsman channel, Vermont, winter | 7 Comments

Another Season

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Quill Gordon

Four seasons aren’t enough to fully define a year in Vermont. We divide the four main season into shorter “sub-seasons”, not only to recognize subtleties and nuances that deserve attention but also, I think, to keep any one of them from seeming to be an endless slog.

Some of these “sub-seasons” are simply the in-between stages as one season gives way to another. After the leaves are off the trees and the tourists have gone home, the hillsides are bare and some guys call the period before the first snow “stick season”. “Black fly season” is endured as spring transitions to summer, following close on the heels of “mud season” which marks the change from winter to spring.

It is now mud season. Continue reading →

Categories: Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: ghoti62, mud season, Rural Life, snow, spring, Vermont, winter | Leave a comment

After The Thaw

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Quill Gordon

The best ice forms when it’s cold. Thus spake Quill Gordon, Chronicler of the Obvious, but we’re not just talking cold here. We’re talking real cold, where boogers freeze and snow squeaks under foot. The kind of cold where an unprotected finger feels like it’s been sliced by a razor and ears like they’ve been set afire. Cold made all the more shocking by following on the heels of a warm January thaw.

On Monday it was 50 degrees and pouring rain. Today it’s impossible to tell how cold it is — because the thermometer disappeared last night in the wind — and dry arctic air continues to assert its dominance by slamming into everything at 40 miles per hour. Except for wool trousers, which it sails right on through. Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Vermont | Tags: ghoti62, ice, january thaw, nature, quill gordon, Vermont, winter | 2 Comments

Like Dew, Only Frozen

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Quill Gordon

On mild days, moisture is drawn from the snow pack into the air. Relatively speaking, warm air holds more moisture than cool so as temperatures drop at night some of that moisture is released as condensation. And if the object upon which that moisture condenses has been chilled to below freezing, frost will form on its surface.

Freezing fog (Beware the Pogonip!) can create frost and has its own eerie beauty but the best examples of frost are seen when the sky is clear and radiational cooling seems to suck the heat out of everything, hurling it out past the stars and into deep space. Delicate filigrees disappear quickly when the warmth of the sun takes over and by the time most people get up the show is over. Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: frost, ice, january thaw, pogonip, Rural Life, Vermont, winter | Leave a comment

Eskimo Blue Day

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Quill Gordon

Sometimes when the cold winter wind screams, seeming to carry nothing but cruelty and pain, it can seem like the best thing to do is scream back. Feet planted and shoulders squared, lean in and let loose with a howl, a yowl or a yelp. Play with the tone and vary the pitch, high, low or otherwise, but always, always keep the volume right where it should be, turned up all the way to 11. Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: death in the woods, ice, nature, quill gordon, Rural Life, snow, Vermont, winter | 1 Comment

The Crunchy Time of Year

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Quill Gordon

Daylight lengthens but the cold deepens, even as Earth’s northern hemisphere begins tilting again toward the sun. Shadows retreat southward, slowly, day by day, and the sun peers over the ridge of the barn roof but, due to a seasonal lag, it will be some time yet before more sun means more warmth. This is the cold time.

Just how deep and vicious the cold will be remains to be seen. Whether it will be a long, protracted spell or wave after bitter wave of chill air is still a matter of conjecture but one thing is for sure: the cold is coming and it is time to get ready or go away.

windowfrost2

Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: ice, nature, Rural Life, snow, Vermont, winter | 7 Comments

Ice, Ice, Baby

Posted on December 13, 2008 by Quill Gordon

When it comes to brutal winter weather, one can embrace it, endure it or leave. Those who choose to embrace and endure call themselves things like the “Frozen Chosen” and remind each other that at least the mosquitoes and summer people are gone. The residents of Frostbite Falls will talk back to the television, saying, “That’s nothing!” when they see a national news story about a major city suffering through a cold snap. The good folks of Hypothermia Junction never see themselves on the national news when it’s cold there, because it’s always cold this time of year. Continue reading →

Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: cold, frozen, ice storms, Vermont, winter | 11 Comments

A Fox, Some Snow Fleas and a Close Shave

Posted on April 4, 2008 by Quill Gordon

It is snowing again here at Fish in a Barrel Pond. No, wait a second, it has turned to rain. Nope, now it is sleeting. We are caught in the middle of a battle between seasons and the incumbent seems to be holding its ground against the usurper. But winter can not stay forever and signs of its demise are beginning to appear. Continue reading →

Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: fox, Humor, nature, Rural Life, shave, snow fleas, spring, Vermont, winter | 12 Comments

March 15, 2008 – It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Posted on March 15, 2008 by Quill Gordon

One of winter’s last gasps.

It’s beautiful …

as long as you don’t have to go anywhere.

Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: beauty, mud, mud season, nature, Rural Life, snow, spring, Vermont, winter | 4 Comments

Driven to Distraction

Posted on March 14, 2008 by Quill Gordon

Last Sunday marked the end of the meteorological winter, the coldest (on average) 91 days of the year. Winter’s back may be broken but it’s still kicking up a fuss, dropping more freezing rain and another 10 inches of snow on the south flank of Nonesuch Mountain but, unlike a mad dog or a downed ewe that can be helped no longer, I can’t shoot it in the head and just get it over with. Continue reading →

Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: driving, frost heaves, Humor, nature, roads, Rural Life, spring, Vermont, winter | 6 Comments