From the Neighborhood in Southern New Hampshire

It’s mid-April. Has snowfall finally ceded sky rights to rainfall?

Too early last December, I discerned a distinct trend of falling snow and falling temperatures. In view of these untimely observations I committed myself to hibernating for the winter.

When the thermometer got stuck at 20 degrees I made a mental note to replace it with one that worked. So I was happy when it got unstuck and dropped to 10 degrees because I could unclutter my brain. When the temperature got stuck at 5 degrees I figured it was best to ignore the thermometer for the rest of the winter.

Not only was there snow, there was snow fog

If you think hibernation was a bed of roses, with hot cocoa and comforters and dime novels, think again. I was so busy writing checks to the plow guy, the oil guy, the electric company, and the auto repair guy I got writer’s cramp.

Alert readers may question why I wrote checks for auto repair when I was hibernating all winter. Congratulations to any who picked up that discrepancy. You should receive a snow shovel but, sorry, they are all sold out.

To justify the checks to auto repair, I will explain that the one sunny day I chose to go forth to seek emergency rations, our car registered a ten-degree thermometer reading and rebelled in a parking lot. At least a hundred other cars rebelled that day (gross estimate) and we had to wait in line for a full twenty-four hours to be towed and get charged up. At least the ice cream didn’t melt.

The beginnings of the Rock of Gibraltar. It willl grow

Meanwhile, the plow guys were having fun creating the Rocky Mountains and the Rock of Gibraltar on our corner property. They were geological spectacles, with layer upon layer of snow added every few days. Why travel when you can watch mountains like the Rockies rise near your doorsteps?

Snow-covered Rockies

To complete the monumental landscape, our neighbor across the street created the White Cliffs of Dover near the road. He is a conscientious snow blower. One of my chores this winter was watching him from my kitchen window, predicting his turns, his pacing, and his masterful aim of the snow stream. It was demanding work, athletic and exhausting, but somebody had to monitor the progress of the rising cliffs.

Still early in the season, eventually the rising cliffs will completely hide the truck

When my neighbor’s truck was completely hidden behind the White Cliffs, I could no longer keep track (in a friendly neighborhood way, of course) of his comings and goings. I had to turn my attention to our backyard, where yet another geologic wonderland was building: a grand tundra.

Lake effect winds, and other odd vagrants, were sweeping through and dropping feet of blowing snow, putting shrubs to sleep and burying garden bling. (In nice weather it distracts the eye from weeds).

If I had walked across this perfect frozen tundra, unmarred by footprints of the tiniest animals, I would have crunched down to my knees, but of course I did not. Walk, that is. I did not want to break that snowy perfection with my clumsy footprints.

Setting sun bouncing off the sparkle on foliage. Norway spruce in foreground

I was thrilled. Everyone knows that snow protects plants from winter’s spoilers. But that is not why I was happy. Now I could drink my cocoa with carefree abandon. Garden beds that would need weeding, mulching, and fertilizing next spring were gone from view and quite forgotten.

What a view of sunshine we had!

Correction: The grand expanse was not entirely unbroken. Spindly dried-up stalks of persistent weeds with seed heads poked up. In a tender moment, I’d left them so birds could have snacks when their cupboards went bare. (Liar, liar, I never even thought about the birds, and early snows were a grand excuse to abandon the garden. See first paragraph in case you’ve forgotten my winter plans.)

Seedheads from coneflower, maybe not so delicious?

Anyway, I never saw any birds balancing on stems and picking out seeds. Not one. Birds are smart cookies. They were probably in Miami lolling under palm trees sipping the drippings from mai tais. At least their claw prints weren’t messing up my tundra.

I personally think this winter was an example of Chaos. No, no, not the evil empire (actually spelled Kaos) that Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 were so nobly outwitting in the Get Smart television series of the sixties.

I’m talking about a real Theory of Chaos that involves high-level physics and mathematics. It is the study of apparently random or unpredictable behavior in systems governed by deterministic laws. (I got that from Google. AI, as a matter of fact, and I’m sure it’s right, because AI is quite a thinker. But you have to read it ten times before you can figure out what it says.)

The Theory of Chaos, I learned, is readily applied to weather systems, which we all know are random and unpredictable, so we should give the weatherman some slack when predictions are a bit off. Therefore, I would humbly suggest that we blame this long winter’s mess on Chaos, (even though predictions of snow and cold seemed to be right on target) and relegate it to the dust bins of our fuzzy minds.

Sometimes the sun tried

Digression: If you want a memorable illustration of the Chaos Theory, though I’m sure this example would be labeled a Conspiracy Theory by physicists, check out the mayhem that occurs in the Country Classic, Third Rock from the Sun. It all happens because a vamp slinks into a bar.

Less memorable but equally momentous was our particular Conspiracy Theory of Chaos right here. We think a rogue, high-flying wind swooped down on the house to begin a random chain of events. But that could be just a Lame Theory.

I should explain that the stage was set way back in the fall when the nice hardware store employee delivered a respectable (huge) pile of mulch bags and placed them against the back wall of the house near our generator.

I was somewhat delusional when I ordered the mulch. I fully intended to spread it on garden beds before winter. As you already know, when the snow began falling, I was compelled to abandon my delusions because I had to hibernate.

Weather reports were so dire the day before one of our major storms I decided to be pro-active for a change and check on our generator before it started snowing. Just to be safe. It was my first venture into the garden since I began hibernating and I was plunged into knee-deep snow because I couldn’t find the snow shovel that happened to be buried under garden detritus from the previous growing season.

This is what I found. The bags of mulch had slumped onto the gas pipe to the generator. The gas pipe froze. The generator refused to run because it had no gas. The fence that was supposed to hide the generator was torn up. It landed on a shrub that had been thinking hard about growing. A foot of snow covered it all and I paid a hefty emergency fee during the storm to have the generator restarted.

Our fence flipped over, old hemlock in background

Once April came, we all thought we were home free from this long winter, but two days after Easter we got pancake-batter snow, you know, the thin layer, only an inch or so, that brightens and whitens lawns and old dirty snow. It’s what farmers used to call Poor Man’s Fertilizer because when it melts it enriches the soil. Don’t ask how, I’m just reporting what the old farmers said.

To be pro-active I’m leaving the snow poles along the driveway until the tulips bloom.  We seem to be pretty much stuck in Mud Season now, but I’m not taking any chances. I kinda miss the snow because it looks prettier than mud and I have no excuse for leaving the mulch in plastic bags.

No more procrastination. Ready for action!

But there is the advantage of some green and other colors. And I don’t need a thermometer to read the temperature. People are out walking, sometimes even strolling, often commiserating about the long winter, and they are not wearing their wool caps.

Lenten Rose, or Hellebore, defies cold and a late snowfall