arctic blizzard sculpts

arctic blizzard sculpts 

sand snow into ridged dunes,

miniature zastrugi

First blizzard of the year roars in during the night, driving snow into drifts in sheltered nooks and scouring open spaces. In the morning the cats take one look through the crack of the front door and refuse to go out. All day the high wind continues to blast the growing drifts with sand snow, sculpting the dunes into miniature zastrugi etched with ridges and grooves. The ground blizzard piles up finger drifts that stretch down the west side of streets and whips sinuous streamers of snow across the highway. Bit by bit the blizzard buries everything, from bushes to bicycles.

fat white flakes falling

fat white flakes falling

on plowed shoulders where flocks of

dark-eyed juncos peck

at grass, flurry up, flashing

white sides of tails and bellies

No wild turkeys in the fields since the blizzard, but after the plow scraped of the snow from the shoulders of the roads, flocks of juncos gather to peck at grass and gravel. With their dark gray backs they are nearly invisible against the barren ground, but when I pass they fly up in a flurry, flashing the white sides of their tails and white bellies.

wind scours snow from fields

wind scours snow from fields,

burnishing the ice beneath

into silver shields

The wind continues to blow snow for a couple of days after the blizzard. Fine powder streams off the curvaceous lips of snow at the edges of fallow fields. The flat fields look like pools of molten silver and the sun shining on these ice shields is blinding. The tops of dry plants poking up reveal the depth of the snow in the deep gullies between the fields and the road. Snow, wind, ice, sun, dead plants and clods of dirt are transformed into a magical diorama.

winter-brown goldfinch

winter-brown goldfinch

knocking seeds from dry wildflowers

to peck from the snow

A small flock of goldfinches in their winter-brown feathers are hopping onto the stems of dry grasses and wildflowers poking up from the drifts, knocking the seeds onto the snow and then hopping down to peck them up. They don't seem to notice me watching from a few feet away. Nothing else moves anywhere in this expanse of white and cold. I reflect on what a good thing it is to leave our yard not mowed, so the birds can harvest the seeds when the ground is covered in two feet of snow.

road knee-deep in snow

road knee-deep in snow –

no car tracks, only one squirrel,

a few deer and me

 

The afternoon after the blizzard we are still snowed in. Brian’s truck transmission broke and Bill from Seven Hills won’t be able to get by to plow until evening. I plow my way to the mailbox, one and a half miles, through snow just below my knees. Hard work in the cold wind, but beautiful – no car tracks, hardly any animal tracks, just a pristine expanse of snow and curvaceous drifts. Every tree nestles in a little hollow well surrounded by a white bowl.

drifts cover the gate

drifts cover the gate,

redbirds first to the feeder,

woodpecker pecks first

Before dawn on the morning after the blizzard we open the door to the entry to discover that the outside door, not tightly closed, had blown open and the shoe rack is covered with snow. Outside, drifts almost completely cover the three-foot gate. When the sky begins to lighten, the redbirds are the first at the feeder. A downy woodpecker clings to the side of a shagbark hickory nearby, feathers fluffed, head turning constantly. After the cardinals have cleared the snow from a corner of the feeder, the woodpecker flies in, scaring off the other birds, picks up one black oil sunflower seed at a time, and flies back to the tree to peck it open. All the birds, including chickadees and titmice, take turns at the access hole, according to their pecking order. As soon as one bird flies away, another takes its place.

a blizzard hurls gusts

a blizzard hurls gusts

of snow outside my window –

sends redbirds tumbling

Historical Blizzard, up to two feet of snow expected with temperatures dropping to 10 below and wind chill as low as minus 40. It started yesterday with sleet that froze as soon as it touched any surface, so now snow skates across ice. High winds are driving the fine white pellets horizontally across flat spaces, piling it into drifts in depressions. A redbird just blew, not flew, past, tumbling as the wind whirled. Stocked with firewood, food, water and kerosene lanterns, we are not going anywhere for two days.