sovay: (Haruspex: Autumn War)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2026-02-23 02:55 pm

Sifting through centuries for moments of your own

The snow has plastered our windows like blinds. This morning it scudded so thickly down our street that the air itself couldn't have been any clearer: it made walls instead of veils of the late streetlight. The yew trees look like calcified humps of stalagmite. It's still blowing around out there, bending the whippier evergreens of the neighbors' yard like a wind sock. I can hear a commuter train whistling dimly from over Route 16. I am informed we have broken the previous state record for snowfall in a day set by the 1997 April Fool's Day Blizzard which had itself surpassed the Blizzard of '78. Our porch is drifted ankle-deep.

asakiyume: (cloud snow)

[personal profile] asakiyume 2026-02-23 08:56 pm (UTC)(link)
This morning the wind was pulling the snow up and swirling it around, begging it to dance, and the snow was SO WILLING. It was magical to see.
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2026-02-23 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Stay warm!

It's a ridiculous 14c here even at 21.00 atm!
yarrowkat: original art by Brian Froud (Default)

[personal profile] yarrowkat 2026-02-23 09:13 pm (UTC)(link)
that's gorgeous and looks so cold!
oracne: turtle (Default)

[personal profile] oracne 2026-02-23 09:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Even in Philly I have drifts against my windows on the north side, atop the air conditioners.
yarrowkat: original art by Brian Froud (Default)

[personal profile] yarrowkat 2026-02-23 09:33 pm (UTC)(link)

only 27! :) no, but i'm glad it isn't bitter-cold for you!

(it hasn't even frozen as an overnight low here this winter. it's so green it glows. our lowest temp, a week ago during a much-advertised cold snap, was 38. fruit trees are starting to bloom, and the magnolias are actually already past their peak and starting to leaf out. California is wild, man)

yarrowkat: original art by Brian Froud (Default)

[personal profile] yarrowkat 2026-02-23 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)

it does not feel even slightly as though winter exists here. people call this winter because it's between solstice & equinox, but like. in any other sense, it's not winter. "the rainy season" is much more accurate. Albuquerque has a real winter, if not as much snow as New England; it has months of freezing temps and everything turns brown and dies back until roughly March. it's going to take me some years to really get used to this, i think. though i confess i love it. i am not sorry to be missing all the dust-storms in the desert this month!

i'll see if i can get a couple recent photos up in my gallery here & link you to them. are you on instagram? i am [profile] cazaderokat there and post mostly nature photos to my stories & little else these days.

yarrowkat: original art by Brian Froud (Default)

[personal profile] yarrowkat 2026-02-23 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)

nicer on the breathing, nicer on the seeing, and nicer on the skin! spring weather can accurately be described as "sandblaster" there. goggles-weather, a friend used to call it.

i haven't lived out a full year yet here, so i can't speak to the transitional seasons with surety yet. but it boils down to the dry season and the rainy season. summer definitely exists, and it's later than in a lot of places - it was still in the 90s when we arrived here in October, and Sept/Oct is usually the hottest time of year. the rains go from roughly November-April. while it is raining, it is green; when it is not raining, it turns gold and rather crunchy underfoot, hence the Golden State. i would have to say that it has felt like spring to my senses all month. there was no fall color during meteorilogical fall; there was a fair amount in December, here and there, including our large Japanese maple tree.

okay, let's see if this works:

Fog over Cazadero Canyon - the view from my back patio & bedroom:

our lower access road, looking southwest from the house:

a spot most of the way down the lower road called Bear Flat, where another person might someday put a small house:

these were all taken within the last couple weeks.

yarrowkat: original art by Brian Froud (Default)

[personal profile] yarrowkat 2026-02-23 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
thank you! it's a truly splendid place to live. like being in a faery tale forest, except that we have to drive into the city to get groceries, lol.