Up To Our Necks

My neighbor called me up on Valentine's Day and invited me to morning tea. She and her husband live along the shore of Lake Huron and have this little fisherman guy that stands watch outside their house.

"I've been wiping the snow off of his face," she said as she met me at the front door. "Some days, he's completely covered!"

The fisherman is a great icon for this winter, a winter when it feels to most Up North Folks like we are up to our necks in snow.

The last storm, the one that started up on Monday afternoon and blew itself out this morning, began here with winds that swirled across the snowbanks, through the frosty woods, and along the ice covering on White Rock Shoal. The morning temperature was 8 below.

Late in the evening, about the time that NBC Olympic coverage was finally showing Meryl Davis and Charlie White in their gold medal ice dancing performance, gusts of ice-filled wind hit the side of the house with a gravelly sound, almost as if some giant was scooping up handfuls of pebbles and throwing it against the walls.

The swirling winds from the east felt like a true nor'easter, but the weather map was all about west to east movement of the storm.

Through all of this "up to our necks" weather is a beauty that defies description.

The ice sparkles, the sun comes up warm, the snow turns pink, the sky stays blue. That morning sun is creeping south bit by bit. The days are getting longer.