it's snowing again, lightly, and this is already the most snow we've had covering the ground for the longest time. there's a solid foot of it on the deck. 2009 might be the year i buy snowshoes. the ski trails that i broke around the field day before yesterday are already drifted over. it's time to prune the apple trees before they even begin to think about spring, and the snow is knee-deep around them. no above-freezing temps in sight.
i made the happiest find of recent days today in the market at kerrytown in ann arbor: they sell duke's mayonaise. last fall ingrid very kindly bought two big jars in raleigh and mailed them to me, since you can't carry such a dangerous substance on a plane anymore. i gave one to penny, who is a big fan of mayo in general and did pronounce duke's the best (of course she grew up in Yankeeland, and duke's of richmond, va., was unknown north of the mason-dixon line). penny is profligate with mayo, though she does have the two grandsons to make sandwiches for, so by new year's eve, hers was all gone. i had been hoarding mine, and had perhaps a solid half jar in the refrigerator, so when out power went out for five days at the end of december, it did seem prudent to throw it out along with some excellent black raspberries i had frozen in july. i was very sad. i have no trips to virginia planned until next fall, and i couldn't mention it to ingrid, because she would just cheerfully send more. i don't want to trouble my elderly cousins about it--once when i asked about what albemarle pippin apples look like, they sent up a boxful.
so imagine my glee when i spotted a display of the bright yellow labels on several jars right here in ann arbor.
an interesting find is a hole in the snow near the pond. a few days ago it was very round, about four inches in diameter. now it's partly covered with new snow. just along the under edge of the snow are a number of small frosty stalagtites. are these being made by vapor from the lungs of a breathing creature hibernating within? i looked at some other openings in the snow, not exactly the same, but couldn't see any such formations around their edges. does anyone know anything about such a possibility? there are no tracks around the hole.
if someone told you that the entire world could be covered with a pure white crystalline substance that fell from the sky and remained for weeks and weeks, would you believe them?
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