| Gt-R R34 | 01-12-2011 01:23 PM |
for all those that hate the snows - this Vancouver Sun story rings so true Quote:
Here we go again, another snowfall warning, another Lotus Land anxiety attack.
Transit might be disrupted! We could get up to 10 centimetres of snow! Brr! It’s so cold that even Chicken Little might freeze solid and drop from the sky like a lump of ice jettisoned by some passing airliner, bound, no doubt, for the tropics.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s 2011, not 2012 and the end of the Mayan long count. Can we please get a grip? It’s January, for Pete’s sake. It’s the middle of winter. It snows here almost every year. And it’s not even that cold.
Consider 1968 when the thermometer plunged to -18, or those in Fort Nelson, where the average temperature for January is -21 degrees and on average they get only one month without snow, or Revelstoke where the average winter snowfall is 425 centimetres – enough to fill your living room to the ceiling and then some.
Yes, yes, I know that cold is hard on the homeless. But it’s not them I hear whining about the weather, it’s those who must struggle from luxury four-by-fours with heated leather seats to their $4 designer coffee. And those carping loudest, I note, are often those who haven’t bothered with winter tires.
From all this weather-related complaining, you’d think a bit of snow was the harbinger of the apocalypse. Look, this is not rocket science. Vancouver is closer to the North Pole than the equator. Records show that Vancouver gets a yearly average of 46.5 centimetres of snow, almost all of it in December, January and February.
Winter comes every year. It isn’t going to stop coming — at least not in what’s left of my lifetime. I did note Tuesday’s report confirming that 2010 was the warmest year recorded in Canada.
So let’s try to keep a little perspective. Not only is the weather not that bad, it has its attractions. I enjoy a brisk walk in the crisp air. I love the evanescent beauty of skim ice on wetlands, the patterns of hoar frost bursting from the soil, even the nature of the light on these thin, cold days.
My philosophy is simple. You have a choice. You can waste your energy snivelling about a natural event that no amount of talk will prevent, or you can make winter your ally and savour all the fleeting wonders it has to offer while you can.
When the warning came that another “heavy” snowfall was imminent, I did what I usually do. I went out and surveyed my woodpile, all carefully hand split – I use a Swedish wedge which I find handles even the knottiest and most intransigent piece – stacked to air dry according to vintage.
Then I decide the kind of fire I want to light in the high efficiency stove with the glass door we installed in the room from which TV has been banished. I’m partial to alder, myself. But there’s yellow cedar for a lighter blaze, maple for a bed of coals and just in case the power goes out for a couple of days, as it often does in a heavy snow, dense, heavy chunks of Douglas fir split salvaged from a stump.
The makings for a hearty stovetop vegetable stew are ready. The unheated garage chills wine to perfection. Storm lanterns are ready. A good book is at hand. So, waste time complaining if you want.
Meanwhile, on the way out to the woodpile, I noticed the evening primroses are in bloom, snowdrops and daffodils are already peeping through the dark soil. Spring is almost here.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Sno...#ixzz1ArWfsPjY
| |
