Now comes the snow. Forecasters have been eyeing low pressure development moving across the Southeast.
Tag: winter
BOB GRAY: Winter solstice
Regardless of the temperature and the calendar, we’ll know we’re on our way out of the long, dark cold.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 37: Is it spring yet?
Yet March brings the cruelty of delayed anticipation, of yearning for signs of new beginnings, of suspension between the end of one thing and the beginning of the next.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 36: Microclimates
March, after all, is a time of transition, and it’s in subtleties of difference that the microclimates of human ecologies emerge.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 35: Winter intimacies
To read the previous chapters of ‘Illuminating the Hidden Forest,’ click here. During the winter, the forest is spare. We can look through the trees at the distant landscapes, only visible now. But the near forest brings us something special, too: the intimate personalities of trees. We see their scars and bruises. We see trees upended
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 34: Winter ice
On each railing a thick ribbon of ice runs from end to end. Below the bridge the water is frozen into mirrors of shiny slickness.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 33: Deer in the dawn
We haven’t been in the woods for many days, Lily and I. I soon saw the wisdom of that absence in the downed limbs and needled branches littering the fresh snow.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 31: Summer eyes and winter eyes
But now it is winter. The forest floor is covered with a blanket of snow. The trees are bare. My winter eyes are different from my summer eyes.
BOB GRAY: March’s face
For me this unwonted warmth is discouraging, even disconcerting. My mind’s not right.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 28: The miracle of milkweed
A veritable banquet for ants, flies, bees, wasps, beetles and butterflies, milkweed’s best-known customer is the monarch butterfly.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 25: Hibernation
For me, winter in the Berkshires involves quite a bit of curling up on a window seat in my snug den, maybe with a book in hand, my dog lying on my tummy, looking forward to an afternoon nap and an early bedtime.
December haikus
When I wake up at 7 in the real morning and hear the long, detailed weather report, I feel… What can I say?
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 23: My canine sensory extender
Lily draws us into possibilities and mysteries, while at the same time reminding us of our limitations.
Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 22: Getting ready for winter
Sometimes, meditatively, we follow one or another leaf with our eyes as it circles slowly downward before settling on the ground.
AMPLIFICATIONS: Thanksgiving
I thought I would list all the reasons I am happy to live in this artistic little bubble I have been calling home for about 25 years.
Winter is just the beginning at The Farm New Marlborough
Farmer Tom is a one man-show, unless you count the dozens upon dozens of animals that are slowly transforming the rugged land through rotational grazing patterns, proving, in short, that many hooves make light work.
NATURE’S TURN: Praise Berkshire winter – and south Florida oases for wildlife, human spirit
A few miles inland, birds, plants and people find refuge from traffic, shopping malls, endless concrete and cookie-cutter rows of houses at two other oases.
CONNECTIONS: The unspeakable climate
It is interesting to contemplate that weather is blamed for the demise of the Vikings, the French Revolution and the bubonic plague. It is also interesting that the founding of this country, the creation of our Constitution, the Civil War, American industrialization and our Gilded Age all happened against a backdrop of extreme cold and global climate change.
Construct’s ‘Warm Up the Winter’ concert raises money for heating assistance in South County
For 50 years, Construct has remained a steady force in South County, providing folks assistance with affordable housing, housing stability, emergency financial assistance and transitional housing.
Dogs and cows both need protection from the elements
In his letter Ron Majdalany writes: “While both dogs and cows may be capable of survival without protection from the elements, good management practices dictate that neither species should be forced to do so.”
Animal agriculture in winter: What farmers do when they’re not growing greens
“We don’t see as much agriculture here as you would in a different part of the country,” Sean Stanton explained; as a result, “you end up with people wondering why the cows are outside in the snow and not understanding how their systems work.”
EYES TO THE SKY: Reach for extraterrestrial holiday lights on darkest, latest mornings
Below and left of Jupiter, relatively faint planet Mercury twinkles close above the skyline while, to the right of Mercury, red star Antares, also pale in the dawn light, rises into the winter morning sky.
Restaurant workers endure exploitation during winter season
In his letter Peter Tiso writes: “Service workers often earn barely enough to keep a car moving legally at all, let alone enough for the extras that make winter driving safer in our climate.”
NATURE’S TURN: When the earth thaws
As of this writing, deep snow covers the mulch that covers the parsnips and the entire expanse of the raised bed garden is a field of white.
NATURE’S TURN: Grow food, however little; grow flowers, even a few
How we grow our food, where we purchase seed and from whom we purchase food affects our health and the health of the land, water and air.
NATURE’S TURN: Spring in the winter air. Trees, gardeners wake from dormancy
The seasons of more active engagement with the land are about to begin.
Signs of life in Berkshires mid-winter
When you’re facing something really tough and you’re so worried you can’t sleep, living through a Berkshire winter can be helpful.
Nick Diller weather summary: December 2017 was warmest, then coldest
The mean temperature for the month was 25.5, three degrees below average. It turned to be the 8th coldest since 1965.
Coldest day this century
The high temperature of 9 degrees represents the coldest high reading since December 22, 1989.
Three poems for the season
Three poems for the season by Matsuo Basho, Robert Frost, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Illustrations by Adam Gudeon.
POEMS: The Snow Stallions; Footprints
Footprints appear everywhere, crisscrossing the yard from the woods to the house and back again.
BOB GRAY: Half-past winter, signs of life
In the next six weeks you might see horns of skunk-cabbage in a sun-warmed swamp.