Winter is still with us, here in the Great Land. While springtime and even early summer have descended on much of the Lower 48, we still have a lot of snow on the ground.
The trees are stark and bare still, the ground is buried beneath feet of densely-compacted snow, and greenery is only to be seen on the northern blue spruce that make up so much of our forest. No harbingers of spring - no magpies, jays, or even seagulls - have ventured this far north. The skies are, of late, brightly lit with hours of abundant sunshine, and the packed snow that has covered our roads and parking lots has begun to melt, forming large ice ponds which melt in late morning, making large ponds of black water which splash and splatter, turning every vehicle the same shade of dirty beige.
When evening comes, despite the more-than-fifteen hours of daylight which is already upon us, the flooded areas begin to re-freeze as the temperatures drop overnight, forming new ice upon which unwary pedestrians slip and slide as they make their ways from parking lot to destination.
We call it "break-up". It's the season of the year when the ice which has covered our lakes and streams begins to grow thin, breaking up into large chunks of ice, exposing more and more of the waters' surfaces as it melts.
In late May or early June, most of the snow cover will finally be gone. Most years, the snow has melted as early as mid-April, but we don't often get 11 feet of snow. So when bare ground begins to appear, there will be mud where it's wet, and dust where it's dry, until the ground itself thaws sufficiently to allow sap to rise in the trees.
Then in one glorious burst of vernal activity the trees will all turn green, going from bare branches to a green haze across the landscape, then finally to fully-leafed out in a matter of only a few days. With so much water in the ground this year, it could happen in as little as 48 hours.
Finally, the grass will begin to grow again and, at last, green growth will provide relief for our eyes which have been longing for anything other than grey or white, during these long months of winter in Alaska.
It's still most likely some eight or ten weeks away, but it will be grand when summer finally arrives.
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Prayer Request: Stephen over at Standing Outside Looking In suffered a heart attack yesterday. Your prayers would be appreciated.
John 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
3 comments:
Yeah, I was NEVER a fan of softball played in a parka... Just sayin... Hope spring comes soon!
Although this may be the homeliest time of year, if Alaska can have one, the sunrises on the white covered landscapes are equaled only by the glorious sunsets and alpenglow. The snow covered mountains turn golden in the morning and anything from rose to magenta in the evening. Sunsets over the inlet, the colors reflecting in the water, turns the house sized ice chunks of ice into lavender vessels on a golden sea. Not much can get more beautiful than that, for sure. I have tried to capture that in paintings as well as photos and though some of them come out pretty well, nothing compares to seeing it with your God given eyes.
SS
What NFO said. I'd love your long days + my temps.
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