Open Thread WE 19 JAN 22 ~


~
It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

-- John Burroughs

~

Strong Winds Sculpt Frozen Sand into Otherworldly Pillars on a Lake Michigan Beach

nowicki-5-640x427@2x.jpg

~

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

~

"I got all my boyhood in vanilla winter waves around the kitchen stove."

-- Jack Kerouac

~

Open Thread so share whatever suits your fancy.

~

Credits --
natural sand sculptures photo by Joshua Nowicki
https://joshuanowicki.smugmug.com

~
harmony.jpeg
Share
up
12 users have voted.

Comments

On this date in history ...

On January 19, 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

On this date in 1943 Janis Joplin, the American singer-songwriter is born.

1937
Howard Hughes flies from Los Angeles to New York in seven hours and 22 minutes.

1861
Georgia secedes from the Union.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

William Shakespeare

Enjoy your winter day!

up
8 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

Warming to about 60 today, but back to the 20's and 30's for the rest of the week.

Loved Alice's quote about snow. We've already had a couple of snows and the call for more in the next week or so. I love how quiet it is after a nice snow.

Stoke the fire and stay warm QMS!
Castles made of sand...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYkbmtvwjY]

up
8 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

A poem for snow and owls;

Snowy Night
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number

of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.

I couldn¹t tell
which one it was ¬
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air ¬

it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren¹t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,

so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more

than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else¹s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable ¬ would have hurried

over the fields
to name it ¬ the owl, I mean.
But it¹s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out

my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,

whatever its name ¬
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
~ Mary Oliver ~

up
6 users have voted.


United States National Park Service photo of the Grand Tetons, in Wyoming

Warm wishes to all you people getting snow and ice. We're going to have some freezing temps here but nothing like most everybody else. Definitely soup weather though. I'm off to cover all my plants.

up
5 users have voted.

@randtntx

the blue sky with the clouds are beautiful.
Wouldn't want to ski those slopes Wink

good day

up
3 users have voted.

@QMS , some of the most spectacularly wonderful slopes to ski. A favorite haunt of mine in my younger days.

up
4 users have voted.

Thanks for that!

Photo-2_Snowy-Owl_Jim-Cumming-Shutterstock.jpg
up
5 users have voted.

@QMS , beautiful picture. Thanks.

up
3 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

Tufa spires at Mono Lake. Chilly here means in the forties, which it has been in the mornings, not a fan. I have wandered, heavily garbed, though midwestern snowfields among the bare trees, birding, and it was bearable and, with the adventure and scenic beauty, even pleasant, for a while, but all the same, not my thing. Best enjoyed at a distance from a nice, warm, comfortable viewing place. Won't even discuss digging out and chaining up the truck to make our getaway in the Sierras, nor the drive back down.

be well and have a good one.

up
3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

actually enjoy sitting on a bucket on a frozen lake dipping a line into a hole
with a frozen worm to try and wake up semi-comatose fish. Just don't get it.

up
2 users have voted.
janis b's picture

I loved your open thread. Such beauty and poetry reflecting the magic of nature and the recognition of it by the human heart.

up
3 users have voted.
zed2's picture

Several years ago, self-taught engineer Jeri Ellsworth turned theory into reality,
successfully making her own transistors! This is her documenting this in a video.

As she tells it, when she was little her father, who was a mechanic, noticed that when she was allowed to take things apart she often did, and successfully put them back together. Her Dad encouraged this talent in her, while many parents would have dismissed her saving all sorts of parts as hoarding "junk".

So here she is.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qph8BNrnLY]

up
0 users have voted.