Walking

Twenty some degrees this morning, and with more snow predicted we weren’t eager to drive into Cooperstown today, so we got our exercise with a frosty walk before the snow started. When we walk in the part of the road that’s been plowed but not driven on, we get pretty decent traction in the loose thin layer of snow. Where the tires have compacted the snow, the road is more likely to be icy and frighteningly slippery.  Two pairs of socks, my warm coat, hat, gloves and boots, and I was pretty warm, except for my face and especially my nose.  Jay was smart to wear a scarf, and I’ll remember next time.

We walked up the hill Gulf Road climbs north of our house. You can see the house and barn on Sunnyhill behind Jay.  The other picture was taken from a little further up Gulf Road, just getting the house at a better angle. The landscape is so simple, with so few colors and with the deep silence peculiar to snow. I haven’t been in rural snow much, except a few winter days in Amenia, and later at my parents’ place in Sharon.  Most of my memory of snow is urban and suburban which is much less beautiful. There, much of the snow quickly turns filthy, mostly from vehicle exhaust. And it is rarer to see large expanses of snow, the norm here. Deer footprints cross Gulf Road in several places. I think about their lives in this climate, and the lives of the first people who lived here. As they had ancestors who had crossed the Bering Sea during the ice age, this probably didn’t look so bad.

In the gym the other day I met a lovely woman from Guanajuato, Mexico.  We sat in the sauna and remembered being warm.  She married a guy from Cooperstown, and they live here with their kids.  A great place to raise kids, we agreed. But cold.

Snow all afternoon, and predicted well past sunset. The sky was clear enough last night that I got a grand view of Jupiter in the early hours, and later, a nice look at the waning moon. The architect who designed the addition to this house made brilliant choices in the size and placement of the bedroom windows.  Three tall, fairly narrow windows face east, the two on either end placed at normal window height, but the middle one starting about five feet off the floor and running to the ceiling.  There were good practical and aesthetic reasons for this choice, but the big benefit is for sky watching, with that high window giving a spectacular view of the night sky.  Waking at different times I can follow Jupiter or the moon rising, slowly moving from left to right in the window. I’ve never lived in a house with such a fabulous view of the night sky right from bed. It’s a joy.