Snow Day

We don't usually get snow this early in winter but it fell heavily all day today. Unlike many people I did manage to get to work as it is not too far from my home. All the buses stopped at 11 a.m. Most schools and many businesses were closed. The garden in the photo is next door to the place where I work, and I took the bird photographs through the window at lunchtime. The large flower panicles belong to a cabbage palm (ti kouka in Maori) and the little waxeyes were all over them. I'm guessing that they need to eat a lot on cold days to keep up their body heat.

I did get to come home a little early so as not to be on the icy roads when it was getting dark. And our usual Wednesday bridge night was cancelled so I have tackled some long overdue housework - nothing like being active for keeping warm. Back to work in the morning, if the snow stops overnight as forecast.

A Year of Photos: August 2011

Engineers appeared in our area, checking the soil strength for rebuilding.

There was a craft fair in town:

I found a new area to walk in, which included this beautiful garden:

where I photographed this fellow:

These two were captured at twilight, closer to home:

We had a second big snowfall (this street is near my work - I walked there as it was easier than driving through the snow)

The central city was still cordoned off:

At the end of August we flew away on holiday for ten days, but that deserves its own post.

The Year in Photos: July 2011

In July I attempted to take photos that weren't earthquake related, such as these smiley balloons (because we could all do with a smile or two)

and the postmen's bicycles lined up outside their depot (something about items in a row that attracts me)

I took another trip out to the seaside suburb of Sumner to see how Shag Rock had fared in the June quakes - not very well:

and to look around the little shops and galleries there

Bandaids were appearing on buildings around town:

This sculpture, erected at the end of 2010, framed the earthquake damaged and cordoned off High Street:

And at the end of the month we had the first of two big snowstorms - almost monochrome, but the Portaloo and orange road cones add a touch of colour.

I ended the month with another smiley photo - I found this one outlined in twigs when shovelling snow in my driveway.

Tuesday Poem: The Snowstorm, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Snowstorm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come, see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake or tree or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
for number or proportion. Mockingly

On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not.
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

I had a couple of spring poems that I was considering for today's post, but then the snow arrived and neither seemed quite appropriate, so I went on a quick search for a winter poem instead.

I cleared the driveway enough last night to get my car out this morning - but more snow fell in the night, so when I got up I found I was back where I started. In the end I decided to walk to work. It usually takes me about half an hour, today it was more like fifty minutes. The first bit was the toughest, once I reached a main road I just walked in the tracks left by cars.

I was quite relieved to be given a lift home in the boss's son-in-law's four wheel drive again, as he finished work a half an hour before me. The drive way is clear again - enough to get the car out - but whether it will remain so tomorrow I don't know.

My boss is very good about paying me when I can't get in due to earthquake or snow, but there have been so many of those paid days already this year that I don't feel right taking more if I can help it. After all, if no work is being done, no money is coming in.

For more Tuesday Poems visit the main hub site.

A Month of Photos #22

More snow! Three weeks ago we had the coldest day since 1918, and now we have a "one in fifty year" snowstorm, which is actually heavier than the previous one, and predicted to last several days. It has swept the whole country, with snow in Wellington for the first time since the 1970's, and snow in Auckland where it is pretty much unprecedented. (Though I don't think it actually stayed on the ground there).

I was all geared up for a snow day with no work, when my boss rang to say that his son-in-law had turned up in his four wheel drive, and could pick me up to take me to work. Given the number of paid days off I have already had this year, what with earthquakes and the previous snowstorm, I could hardly refuse.

I photographed the pigeons from the window at work, they were on the roof of a nearby house.