First Snow

We’ve had our first snow and, from the time between when I took some of these photos and started putting together this post, we had our second and third snows. To have this much snow in November with leaves still on many of the trees and shrubs is rare, so I had to go out and see it.

But snow isn’t all we’ve seen. The frost on the windows speaks of full blown winter, even though winter is still weeks away.

These snows have been of the sticky kind and snow covered every branch and leaf.

Beech leaves will stay on the tree through winter and they do collect snow, but though the extra weight seems to bend their branches down I’ve seen very few very few actually fall off.

Oak leaves form the waxy, corky cells called the abscission layer at their base later than many other trees so seeing leaves on oak trees in the winter is no great surprise, but I know this tree well and it has usually shed all of its leaves before it snows.  In fact most oak trees still have most of their leaves and this can be problematic, because the snow load on those leaves can lead to power outages from all the falling branches. Unlike beech trees oak trees lose branches regularly year round, and I’ve seen limbs as big as my leg fall on calm summer days, so it doesn’t take much snow to bring them down.

An odd thing that I noticed was how many oak leaves fell after the storm. Everywhere you looked the snow was covered with oak leaves.

The dark color of oak leaves means they absorb sunshine, which warms them and lets them melt their way through the snow. Oak leaves also repel water and you and see it in the many water droplets on the surface of this leaf.

There were many oak leaves that were still in the process of changing into their fall colors when the snow fell, like the beautiful leaves on this small red oak.

The hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) in my back yard were heavy with snow but like most evergreens they have a lot of flex in their branches so they can take quite a snow load. In fact they keep much of the snow from falling on the ground under them, so there is often several inches less snow on the ground in a hemlock grove. In a snowy winter deer will go there and so will I, because the walking is much easier.

When the sun fell through the forest in such a way that the still colorful shrubs were highlighted it was a very beautiful scene and I had to stop and just absorb it. It is things like this that truly are good for the soul I think. I’ve discovered that being able to find joy in the simplest things means that joy is never far away.

The small pond in my neighborhood has already frozen over but on this day it was really more slush than solid ice. After -2 degrees F on Thanksgiving night though, I’m sure it must be solid now.

There is a muskrat in this pond that eats an incredible amount of cattail roots (Typha latifolia,) and I know that from seeing not only the muskrat but all of the cutoff cattail stems floating on the surface of the pond. Native Americans used to roast these roots and make flour from them. They contain more starch than potatoes and more protein than rice. In fact Natives used all parts of the plant, eating the new shoots in spring, weaving mats and baskets from the leaves, and even using the pollen in bread.

I thought I’d get an old cliché shot of white snow on red winterberries but by the time I got there the wind had blown all the snow off them. They’re still pretty though, nevertheless. Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is a native holly that likes a lot of water. Birds love the bright red berries and it is an excellent choice for a landscape plant to attract them, especially if your yard has wet spots.

Here is another view of colorful understory shrubs in a snowy forest. It’s so very beautiful and it doesn’t happen often, so I was thankful that I could see such scenes on this day.

Mount Monadnock is always at its most beautiful when it is snow covered, in my opinion.  Scenes like this remind me of the shoulder deep snow I found up there when I climbed it one April day; snow so deep I had to crawl over it to reach the summit. Henry David Thoreau wrote that felt the presence of “a vast, titanic power” when he saw Mount Monadnock. He climbed Monadnock many times but finally realized “Those who climb Monadnock have seen but little of the mountain. I came not to look off from it, but to look at it. The view of the pinnacle itself from the plateau below surpasses any view which you get from the summit.” I agree, and that’s one reason I don’t climb it.

And then it snowed again, and again…

…until it seemed that every living thing must be coated with it, and it reminded me of one of my favorite winter quotes by William Sharp: There is nothing in the world more beautiful than the forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. It is the still ecstasy of nature, wherein every spray, every blade of grass, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.

This grove of witch hazels (Hamamelis virginiana) was certainly clad with radiance.

And they also had hundreds of flowers blossoming in the snow. I’ve known for a long time that these flowers were tough, but this is the first time I’ve seen this. I think they were taken by surprise because it had been in the low 40s F before it snowed, and that’s plenty warm enough for witch hazel blossoms.

It is in the deep quiet of a winter morning just before sunup when I really feel the beauty of this season. The birds are silent at that time of day and if I’m lucky so are my thoughts, and it is at those times when a great sense of peace can come over me. It’s the same peace that comes on the top of a mountain, or when I sit beside a river, or when I’m in a forest and sit with my back against a tree. It’s a peace that is always there but one that you can’t just order up like a meal at a diner. You can search for it as long as you like but it is only when you stop searching and are still that it will find you. It is restorative; healing even, and I do hope it will find all of you as well.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? ~ J. B. Priestley

Thanks for stopping in.