Humptulips County was already snowbound when I woke this morning, yet the weather forecasters promise additional heavy snowfall throughout the day. Although it tries to go off at odd intervals, we have power at the farm and everything inside is warm and cozy. I am staying home from work due to not trusting other drivers to behave responsibly and having no interest at all in having to sleep in my office if I could not get home. When you have a thirty mile, one-way commute to your office and you are already snow bound, decisions of this kind are easily made.
The view from our windows over the fields and into the pines is wondrous. It is as if the farm has become a fairyland. Even though I know every hollow and hillock on the land, all of its secrets now lie buried under several inches of snow, snow which has smoothed out the land’s details and reduced the geography to an inversely-colored silhouette. It’s shape causes me to imagine sledding on our hill, but I am long past the age where I would try it on my own. If only my grandchildren were here, I might be induced to try. Given our lack of children at home and the corresponding lack of sledding equipment, we would be using cardboard if they were here and this homemade aspect would make it all the more fun. Perhaps my son, Don, can tell the girls that we went sledding in our collective imaginations, for I can certainly see and hear them even if it isn’t really happening. I hope he remembers to remind them that we had hot chocolate afterward.
All of the trees are heavy with the snow, the pines being the most altered in appearance. Pine boughs are pulled strongly downward by the weight of the snow all along our drive, and when I walked to our mailbox yesterday afternoon I took my walking stick and knocked snow off as many of them as I could so that our drive would look more normal. When I started my walk, the drive more resembled a tunnel as many of the upright boughs from pines on either side had met in its middle courtesy of their snow-pack and gravity. When I first looked down the hill where the drive first goes, it was as if a Tolkienesque secret way had appeared where there had been none before. I would have left this mysterious tunnel alone for the sake of my imagination but for the practical necessity of getting our cars out for needed supplies.
Once I get to the bottom of our hill, the drive opens up as there are pines on only one side. There the sky was that curious color of grey that promises yet more snow but cannot be adequately described – at least by me. There is a heightened sense of grayness to the color, a lighter, more active gray if that is a concept that makes any sense when discussing color. All I know is that once you understand the color, it is self-evident upon appearance and you simply know that snow is forthcoming.
The birds who winter over are in full evidence. In the intervals between snowfalls, they swoop looking for seeds and during the falls they spend a good deal of time in the inner reaches of the pines where they are more protected from the weather. In the hush that the snow brings, their wing beats are more evident as they fly and you can hear them when they land to seek food. Their claw prints are everywhere when they are out and about, but are quickly covered when the snow falls anew.
The paw prints of other animals are seen erratically. I more often find those prints in the early morning as these creatures forage in the night or in the pre-dawn light. I am not an expert on paw prints, but I study them nonetheless while guessing at which animals might have originated them. While I have always known that we share our land with a good deal of other life, the bigger, non-avian life forms are typically shy about being seen and it is only these tracks that tell me where they have been and, to some extent, when they might have been there.
And everywhere there is a palpable hush. It is as physically present as the paw prints, the birds and the snow itself are. It can almost be touched, tasted or smelled as it affects more senses than just hearing. In that hush, I imagine this land as it once was before the roads, before the houses, before the people. In that hush, the land is once again primeval, even if only momentarily. In that hush, the land is alive with possibilities. In that hush are imaginary adventures limited only by my imagination. In that hush are trolls, hobbits, wizards, sled dogs, and Jack London’s To Light a Fire.
I am safe and warm inside my library this morning, shielded by my books from whatever walks abroad and from the outside cold – although many imaginary possibilities are rendered live by the many stories contained within these walls. I will read at least one of my books throughout the day between phone calls and email, and they will allow me to imagine other, non-snow bound worlds.
Insofar as winter fairylands go, I don’t have to imagine one – I just have to look out my window or walk to the mailbox and there it will be.
