It's snow time!

Deer leap through the snow near our house.

I've been pretty much paralyzed the last three days, ever since it started to snow. As you know if you regularly read this blog, our weather has been abnormally dry. Oregon's Cascade Mountains, though not as dry as California's Sierra Nevadas, had far too little snow, and the summer water situation was beginning to look grim.

No longer. Three days ago a series of storms swept in, bringing heavy snow to the mountains and even the Willamette Valley. In Sisters, it deposited three to four feet—it's difficult to be exact. All that snow was mesmerizing and magical, and we both had a hard time tearing ourselves away from the sight of thick snow pouring down hour after hour after hour. We watched as first one shrub and then another, and then small trees, disappeared under a graceful curve of white crystals.

The whiteness filled our winter-dark rooms with glowing light, and I want to thank whoever it was who designed snow to be white. It could have been made blue, or green, or even brown, I suppose, but someone had their thinking cap on and realized that during winter's darkest days a little reflected light off glistening white snow would be welcome. My little office is filled with light these days, making it a joy to enter.

The neighborhood from our front door.
You can see where we dug a path to the street Saturday morning.

Sisters is used to snow, but amounts like this are rare. We haven't been able to get around to see how the rest of the community is faring, but on our street at least, neighbors with shovels have been moving through the streets, helping one other shovel out paths and driveways. Not every one has been so lucky. The Nugget reports that an elderly couple was found dead in the snow, apparently trying to walk to a residence on an unplowed and "heavily blanketed" driveway. A sad note to an otherwise exciting few days.

This morning the storm moved on, the snow stopped, and the sun came out, producing a blinding and beautiful whiteness. And already, it's starting to melt. The pines, whose branches only a few hours ago held buckets of snow, are now almost bare. Beginning tomorrow at least five days of warming rain will arrive, and with it, chances of flooding.

Coincidentally, an article in today's New York Times titled "The End of Snow?" details the myriad places and ways that the white stuff is disappearing, thanks to climate change. It's depressing and frustrating that so little is being done, and if we could we'd happily share our abundance. Since we can't, we'll celebrate this bountiful gift by going for a walk, and by praying that the rains arrive slowly, enabling the melt to soak into the earth, not flood it.

This icicle over our back door eventually grew
to 42 inches before Ray knocked it down.

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Justice and freedom

Much as I try to keep news and politics out of the blog, there are some topics I can't ignore. Yesterday George Zimmerman was declared not guilty of shooting Trayvon Martin. Today the New York Times reports that in the last 12 hours over a million tweets were sent on this subject. I received some of those, and I agreed with most of them. This verdict was a travesty. We must, if we believe in the rule of law, accept that jury's decision. But we don't have to accept the NRA-sponsored laws and the social constructs that encouraged Zimmerman's actions. Those can be changed, with determination and hard work. But personally, I am ashamed of Florida and ashamed of this country. It's the 21st century and we're still struggling to end racism? What's it going to take?

As a woman I find it equally frustrating that this week in Texas they voted to limit abortion to 20 weeks and severely reduce access to clinics that provide abortion and other health services for Texas women. Yes, there will still be five clinics left open—in a state that that covers 268,820 square miles and has a population of 26.1 million residents. Texas residents have the highest uninsured rate in the country (nearly 29 percent, in 2012, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index), and Medicaid is closed to anyone earning more than $196 a month, so how low-income women are going to get help is a mystery.

Legislators declared that they're "protecting" women and the unborn, though without doubt some women will now die from botched abortions. And should they decide to have the child, they can't count on help or medical care for it either. Governor Perry has so far refused to participate in the Affordable Care Act, which would expand Medicaid.

Those on the right see all this as a reflection of true freedom. They deplore government intervention in all its forms, but think it's fine to dictate to women when it comes to health and personal decisions. If it weren't so serious it would be laughable, since many of these men don't appear to have a clue as to how women's bodies work.

Since one definition of freedom is the right of self-determination, I wonder how our freedom-loving legislators justify their thinking. Depriving women or blacks of their right to determine their personal lives (which includes going for Skittles and getting an abortion) while at the same time promoting "freedom," is contradictory, stupid, racist, and anti-woman. Are we really in the 21st century?