MARGARET BUFFIE'S WEBSITE/BLOG: 2017-03-05

I've looked at snow "from both sides now, from up and down" to quote the great Joni Mitchel, but I do know snow. I grew up in Manitoba.

Huge sloppy flakes, tiny beads that sting your face, curtains of snow, drifts of snow, hard layers of city snow like prehistoric layered ice and earth, soft snow that you fall back into without fear; crystal snow that creeps with icy fingers onto your neck between your parka and your scarf; that freezes your toes in your ice skates; that burns your face, cuts deep into your wrists just above your mitts and numbs your silly nyloned legs on the way to school.

And I see it. I see how it transforms my garden, my city, my street. I long to see it more often at the lake where we spend so much of our summer.

I know the colours of snow in light and in the dark. I know the long shadows that fall across it: clear shades of blue; dust gray, mouse brown, sun pink, green tinged, sheer frosted white, and dirty sand brown. And when it begins to melt I recognize the pockmarks than deepen in the snow that mean a thaw is at work.

I know snow's indescribable smells - early snow that smell of earth and sun - and late snow in the city with the dark moist smells of tar and sand. At the lake cottage there will be the smell pine and the echoes of mouldering leaves feeding the earth below. I've tasted snow. I've felt it, formed it and built with it.

My memories of lake visits always start with cross country skiing in; of the cottage floor and walls covered in frost until the fire gets hot enough to warm the wood; cutting and bashing through ice for water; snowshoeing through the woods dodging clumps of snow that slide off the spruce and balsam trees onto knitted caps and shoulders, and the whap whap of it falling off our warming roof to the ground below. Most of all, the deep silence broken only now and again by hushed breezes and distant bird chirrups in the night.

Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;

The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,

Cold has seized the birds' wings;

Season of ice, this is my news."

- Irish poem, 9th Century

My Street in early winter

City Garden

"Nature has undoubtedly mastered the art of

winter gardening and even the most experienced gardener can learn from the unrestrained beauty around them."

- Vincent A. Simeone

"I've been a dweller on the plains,

have sighed when summer days were gone;

No more I'll sigh; for winter here

Hath gladsome gardens of his own."

- Dorothy Wordsworth,

Garden gate

Still morning

The arbour that separates our two gardens

Icicles outside my studio window, overlooking the garden

Iced Alyssum Flowers

Through my studio window - late afternoon

My little winter hummingbird

Frosted leaves

The snow cones of cone flowers

Cotoneaster berries with frozen drops of water.

I can see myself in one of the drops

Sage and ladybug held in deep frost

Early morning snow on my veranda stairs

leading to the street. No mailman yet, to scar the smoothness

Drifts of shadow waves near the river

Early morning visitor

Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness; now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow.

David Thoreau

Swathes of snow, constantly changing shades

and movement - yet all done in complete silence.

Margaret Buffie

Shades of crystal blue

Stairway fence

"Ski slope" in my garden

Frost

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

“December's wintery breath is already clouding
the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer's memory...”
John Geddes

Behind a frosted window I see a small creature peering in at me.

Another visitor waiting behind the frost,

white shoulders gleaming..

Moon Flowers

Dancing Frost

A little forest of frost

Knitted frost

Feathered Frost with Hidden Figure

Early Winter at the Cabin

Balsam cast in ice-white amber

Stone and Ice

Headdress

A breath of wind will puff it all away

The log cabin in hiding

Going to a snow ball

The old dock

Soon the ice will come and as it

deepens and thickens,
it with twist its wooden back.

Heading out for a walk

Settling in

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself." Ruth Stout

"Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather

golden moments, embark upon a sentimental

journey, and enjoy every idle hour. "

John Boswell

Neighbourhood "Walks"

The shed of leaves became a cascade of red and gold and after a time the trees stood skeletal against a sky of weathered tin. The land lay bled of its colors. The nights lengthened, went darker, brightened in their clustered stars. The chilled air smelled of woodsmoke, of distances and passing time. James Carlos Blake