Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Snow on July Fourth!
by White Feather
That's right, you read that title correctly. We had snow today on the Fourth of July--two weeks after the summer solstice! Mind you, we didn't have snow here in town--although that is a possibility at this time of year still--but rather we had snow on the mountaintops of the Sangre de Cristo range which we look up at to the south of town.
It began raining this afternoon just the second I left the house to walk to work. That has happened three times in the last five days. The clouds had been building for a few hours and it was getting darker and darker. I left the house to sprinkles and as I turned onto the sidewalk to head to work a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky to my right. The bone-shattering thunder followed just a second later.
It sprinkled on me the entire way to work. The wind was blowing like it was in a hurry to get somewhere fast; first, in one direction then another and then another. The wind, it seems had forgotten it's map. In the eight minute walk to work there must have been twenty dances of lightning and thunder and every one of them was a very close and intimate dance. Luckily, my toes were not stepped on.
I remember thinking, Why the hell did I bother washing my hair? Of course, this was the least of my thoughts.
The air was charged. The ground was charged. I could feel the trees and plants reacting to the barometric giddyup. There were no birds nor squirrels anywhere. Where the hell did they go? Like many of the businesses today, the flowers were all closed up.
I was only partially drenched when I got to work. There is nothing like showing up for work wet.
Five minutes later it was raining buckets, and I mean gigantic, enormous, humongous buckets! God-sized buckets. It's like God tore a big huge gash in her waterbed. It got so dark the street lights came on. Everything came to a stop. It was a deluge, a cloudburst, a gullywasher. And it was absolutely beautiful!
Anyway, it only lasted about twenty minutes and afterwards everyone went back to work. It's one of those events where all activity stops for twenty minutes. It's something that escapes no one's attention. It is one of Ma Nature's most exciting attention grabbers. Oh, and it feels so good to the body, too.
So I go on working and the rain stops and eventually the clouds move on (on their way to Kansas). The clouds also empty off the mountains. About 40 minutes later I happened to look out the window (which faces south toward the majestic Sangre de Cristo mountain range) and I see that all the clouds are off the mountain and I see that the tops of the mountains were covered with a new and seemingly thick layer of snow.
Wow! This is not a rare phenomenon. Snow on the mountains in the middle of summer usually happens once or twice or thrice each summer. It's not that unusual around here and I've witnessed it every summer for the last fourteen years yet it still manages to freak me out and fill me with joyful glee. To look at those mountains with new snow on them in July is a very special thing and I feel very privileged.
These mountains are over 14,000 ft. in altitude (sorry, I don't know how many millimeters that is). The snow appeared to be from 10,000 ft. up. The town sits at a little over 7,000 ft., which, to most people, is like being at the tippy-top of a high mountain. But we are actually at the bottom of a valley looking up 7,000 ft. at 14,000 ft. mountains. Seeing the tops of these mountains covered in snow on the Fourth of July is very special. To outsiders it's some kind of freak phenomenon but to locals it's something we look forward to experiencing each year. It's actually part of what connects us to these vibrational coordinates.
The snow, by the way, melted in about an hour and a half--which is about normal for this time of year.
Copyright © 2006, by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. Books by White Feather
That's right, you read that title correctly. We had snow today on the Fourth of July--two weeks after the summer solstice! Mind you, we didn't have snow here in town--although that is a possibility at this time of year still--but rather we had snow on the mountaintops of the Sangre de Cristo range which we look up at to the south of town.
It began raining this afternoon just the second I left the house to walk to work. That has happened three times in the last five days. The clouds had been building for a few hours and it was getting darker and darker. I left the house to sprinkles and as I turned onto the sidewalk to head to work a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky to my right. The bone-shattering thunder followed just a second later.
It sprinkled on me the entire way to work. The wind was blowing like it was in a hurry to get somewhere fast; first, in one direction then another and then another. The wind, it seems had forgotten it's map. In the eight minute walk to work there must have been twenty dances of lightning and thunder and every one of them was a very close and intimate dance. Luckily, my toes were not stepped on.
I remember thinking, Why the hell did I bother washing my hair? Of course, this was the least of my thoughts.
The air was charged. The ground was charged. I could feel the trees and plants reacting to the barometric giddyup. There were no birds nor squirrels anywhere. Where the hell did they go? Like many of the businesses today, the flowers were all closed up.
I was only partially drenched when I got to work. There is nothing like showing up for work wet.
Five minutes later it was raining buckets, and I mean gigantic, enormous, humongous buckets! God-sized buckets. It's like God tore a big huge gash in her waterbed. It got so dark the street lights came on. Everything came to a stop. It was a deluge, a cloudburst, a gullywasher. And it was absolutely beautiful!
Anyway, it only lasted about twenty minutes and afterwards everyone went back to work. It's one of those events where all activity stops for twenty minutes. It's something that escapes no one's attention. It is one of Ma Nature's most exciting attention grabbers. Oh, and it feels so good to the body, too.
So I go on working and the rain stops and eventually the clouds move on (on their way to Kansas). The clouds also empty off the mountains. About 40 minutes later I happened to look out the window (which faces south toward the majestic Sangre de Cristo mountain range) and I see that all the clouds are off the mountain and I see that the tops of the mountains were covered with a new and seemingly thick layer of snow.
Wow! This is not a rare phenomenon. Snow on the mountains in the middle of summer usually happens once or twice or thrice each summer. It's not that unusual around here and I've witnessed it every summer for the last fourteen years yet it still manages to freak me out and fill me with joyful glee. To look at those mountains with new snow on them in July is a very special thing and I feel very privileged.
These mountains are over 14,000 ft. in altitude (sorry, I don't know how many millimeters that is). The snow appeared to be from 10,000 ft. up. The town sits at a little over 7,000 ft., which, to most people, is like being at the tippy-top of a high mountain. But we are actually at the bottom of a valley looking up 7,000 ft. at 14,000 ft. mountains. Seeing the tops of these mountains covered in snow on the Fourth of July is very special. To outsiders it's some kind of freak phenomenon but to locals it's something we look forward to experiencing each year. It's actually part of what connects us to these vibrational coordinates.
The snow, by the way, melted in about an hour and a half--which is about normal for this time of year.
Copyright © 2006, by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. Books by White Feather
Also by White Feather:
Fried Baloney Sandwiches
Fried Baloney Sandwiches
Labels: White Feather
