There is something special about snow falling. Falling soft and light as it is right now outside my window.
Archer Atwood Books News: 2025: Episode 1
Snow
Oh, how I feel bad for kids who have never experienced building a snowman, or wake to find out school is canceled due to a snowfall that they will soon go out and play in. Who never got to sled down a big hill on a piece of plastic or wood that you have very little control over and may end up in a hidden thorny bush at the bottom. Or never got to slide into that other kid who was on his way up the hill pulling his sled, causing him or her to fall on you, then you both go down the hill sandwiched together with your wild laughter floating out on misty breaths.
Snow
It comes in so many wonderful “flavors”. There is the soft cottony type that just clings to the branches of trees. As it builds up it gives the impression that everything has been painted with glistening white icing. This type is the best snowman and snowball making snow.
There is the type with a touch of graininess that adds sparkle! When you look out at a lawn of this snow, it looks like someone sprinkled diamonds on it! The extreme of this is when the temperature warms up at the end of the snowstorm causing the flakes to melt and you have a layer of ice over the snow. Now your lawn looks like it is glass covered. When I was a kid we actually skated all around our yard on this layer of ice that covered two feet of snow!
Snow
My favorite time to experience a snowstorm is at night. Those tiny snowflakes come down out of the dark and magically appear in front of you. When you glance over at a streetlight, you see them illuminated and floating down. The air is clean and crisp: there is silence. In a rainstorm you hear the droplets hitting the ground and everything around you. In a snowstorm, the impact is silent, and all that snow causes a noise dampening effect. Soft falling stealth cold flakes landing on my face.
Yes, a nighttime snowstorm is the best, because it also leads to that first morning when you look out and the snow is perfect! It’s clean and undisturbed, insulating everything in your view. The poets speak of it looking like a white blanket covering the land, and its true.
All that beauty makes me feel joyous and renewed, and I wish that the pristine yards and fields would remain untouched all winter.
The only time I don’t like snowstorms, are when I have someplace important to go. Or, when the snow lingers around way too long and starts looking dirty, or it snows in May. Yes, we New Englanders can be fickle! For now, early in the winter season, I always long for that next magical snow.
Wishing you a magical winter.
Atwood
This snowy article was brought to you by “Moonlit Meadow”
This article is copyrighted by Archer Atwood Books/N.A.M. 2025.