Snowvember II

After some initial dustings and two more serious snowfalls, we got clobbered in earnest. Last weekend's snow gradually blew out of the trees and began melting on the ground.

There was just a thin carpet of snow in the woods. Some had partly thawed and then frozen to the pine boughs.

Just after I tarped Boris' car for the winter, a thin sleet began to fall. Joanne came home in the evening and the road was slippery. Later, large flakes came down, and by morning we had about 16 inches.

The pine boughs are heavily laden; on the way into town we saw many trees had collapsed, some onto the power lines and some into the road. The road was very rough--as though the crews had given up as soon as school was cancelled. The lights were out at several intersections in the city. All in all, it was a rough commute.

First Snow

The first snowfall has arrived; it's now on its second day and seems inclined to linger.
It's not early in the season;
it's not especially late.
Just winter.

This is one of our "Druidic burials": a clump of uprooted trees that have been trimmed so the disturbed earth settles down again, and the rent in the landscape is healed. This one will yield some pretty good firewood!

The grove at the edge of the wood. The even-aged stand of red pine, all crown-lifted to the same height, create odd lighting effects.

Here is the Lone Pine in its winter array; if only there were some sun!

The light scattering of snow on the branches emphasizes the darkness under the closed canopy. Even in winter, with the leaves all down, it can be quite gloomy.

Last of the Fair Weather

This may be the last weekend with temperatures consistently above zero. When I got up, it was about 2.4. The woodlot was drenched, but we took the dogs back to the campsite. Here is another pet tree: the only white pine south of the Five Thousand, apart from that poor waif by Panama. It grew up with balsam fir packed tightly around it, so there are no low boughs at all. We gave it some room a few years back.




This gives a fair impression of the lot today: a dull sky above whose light fails to penetrate to the forest floor, and dark, wet trees below.

We bravely decided to cut away some clumps of uprooted trees to let the ground settle again. Lots of wedge-work: the saw got pinched in a cut twice. One was an enormous old trembling aspen, the largest diameter tree I have cut yet, I think.

Supermoon

Still struggling with astrophotography. There was a slight haze beginning, but I managed a few fairly clear shots of the moon. It was a beautifully warm evening for it, and indeed, it is only 2.5 C (above!) this morning.

Dawn

On the day of the Supermoon, we greet a sombre but beautiful dawn. I opened the front window and made a panorama:

We had a solid frost last night, but we're still hitting low 10s during the day. These are good working conditions; we raised the crowns on the front lines of red pine over the long weekend and chipped up all the brush.

Pet Trees

While we have planted thousands of trees--hundreds of which lived!--there are still some special ones. This, for example, is one of the very first we planted: a white pine. I ran over it with the lawn mover regularly; its growth is, as a result, somewhat retarded. At some point between running it over and today's rather brutal pruning, we lost track of its growth, which was wayward. I think we'll get it back on track eventually. The main bole split into three co-dominant stems, so it's been putting much of its effort into branches low on the tree. These grow upward to challenge the leader for height. Next fall I'll take out one of the three.

This is a balsam fir that shed almost all its needles one hot summer. Instead of cutting it out, we left it--we really did nothing more. Gradually, it put out new growth and the skeletal tracery of dead branches was replaced by an increasing minority of green, which has now become an overwhelming majority.

We had the misfortune to plant a cedar directly over the access hatch to the septic tank. It was well established by the time we had to have the tank pumped, and we ending up moving quite a large tree. We had to cut away most of the root system. It looked dead for two or three years, and then sprang back to life. It is obviously less lush than the line of cedar to its right, but that is because I did not subject it to the indignities of pruning and pollarding!

And this is just a flowering shrub--catching the light of this mild and beautiful November day.

That Time of Year

Autumn fires:

Winter fires:

No Vember

No sun—no moon!
  No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
  No sky—no earthly view—
  No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
  No end to any Row—
  No indications where the Crescents go—
  No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
  No courtesies for showing ‘em—
     
No knowing ‘em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
“No go”—by land or ocean—
  No mail—no post—
  No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
  No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
  No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
  November!
                                         --Thomas Hood, 1844