A Wet Snow

Late Monday afternoon the 30% chance of rain turned into great big beautiful snowflakes, dumping about 2 inches in Fort Collins. So much for weather forecast accuracy. It continued throughout the night then showed us blue skies by noon. In my eyes those big wet snowflakes make it a gorgeous snowfall. By 9:00 am I was excitedly heading to the Environmental Learning Center. I wanted to walk the trails and see the beauty nature was presenting. A wet snow like this one must be felt and experienced up close.

With no wind during the night the wet snow piled up on the tree branches and those few solitary leaves still hanging on the branches. First one snowflake falls on a branch quickly followed by another, clinging tightly to each other. Each unique snowflake when combined with each other is natures work of art. I love it.

The snow had begun in the gloaming, 
And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 
With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch deep with pearl. 

James Russel Lowell

Quiet. The crunching of snow under my boots would break the silence. The winding trail leads me through one meadow and then takes me through the overhanging branches of trees and on to the next meadow and more trees. My eyes are searching this almost all black and white scene. I’m looking, open for anything. A prayer resonates deep within me. I feel a peace. Gentle breezes blow snow off the branches creating a quiet snowfall and blanketing me in white. Now I smile. Love it.

“The snowfall is so silent, so slow, bit by bit, with delicacy it settles down on the earth and covers over the fields. The silent snow comes down white and weightless; snowfall makes no noise, falls as forgetting falls, flake after flake. It covers the fields gently while frost attacks them with its sudden flashes of white; covers everything with its pure and silent covering; not one thing on the ground anywhere escapes it. And wherever it falls it stays, content and gay, for snow does not slip off as rain does, but it stays and sinks in. The flakes are skyflowers, pale lilies from the clouds, that wither on earth. They come down blossoming but then so quickly they are gone; they bloom only on the peak, above the mountains, and make the earth feel heavier when they die inside. Snow, delicate snow, that falls with such lightness on the head, on the feelings, come and cover over the sadness that lies always in my reason.” – Miguel de Unamuno