SNOWFALL

Tiny wooden cabin in hills of snow and pine trees, Colorado.
 

THE COLOUR OF SNOW

Light from the atmosphere will collide with a snowflake, bouncing and refracting off the many tiny crystalline parts. In a single snowflake, turned just-so, we may see a rainbow.

But when snowflakes gather on a hillside, all those angles suffice to refract each wave-length equally, until the hill seems to be covered in a white blanket.

TONALITIES

During the day, the snow on the hill will change in tone, in colour, in quality. On cloudy, snowstorm days it is a hazy green-grey; while on a washed blue sky day, the snow seems to be cleaner, brighter, effervescent.

Then there is that special time: dusk. At dusk, the snow takes on the purples of the clouds, the deep, shifting layers of pink and maroon.


white is the absence of colour
as all waves in the spectrum are reflected and scattered
off a white surface,
white is the colour of light itself;
and yet
white contains all colours
just as light contains a rainbow


A deer in the village, in Vail Valley.
Snowy mountains and a frozen waterfall in the Glenwood Canyon, Colorado.
Rainbow over snowy pine tree hills.
Pink and red clouds over a Colorado snowy street at sunset.
A snowman under a sunset.
Dotsero village in the winter, by the river, Colorado.
Wooden cabin in the hills - snow and pine trees, Colorado.
River running through snow covered landscape, in Vail.
Light reflecting off the windows of houses in the Vail Valley, winter snow on the mountains.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS

Strawberry Hot Springs at Steamboat - in the winter steam rises from the snow.

SUBLIMATION | CO2(s) -> CO2(g)

The dead of middle winter
Glacés the waters
with
Hydrogen molecules and hexagonal structures


All but the hot springs, a holy place
A trinity of waters
Creeping ices
Visions of mist like foam in the air
And the waters wrapped around my body
Precisely the way clothing isn't

The dead of middle winter
Hurts my toes
Turns my hair into icicles
I am becoming crystalline

Triangular influences
Wrack my winter body
From the waist down I am water
Waist up I am steam
From high above the moon
pulls my blood
the way it affects the waters

A process of sublimation begins
A rarity
Dissolving a little at the edges
I am turned from solid form
Into steam
Mists and vapors
Draped over the earth
 

I am the one
Enveloping
the moon


Snow in the trees among the steam at Strawberry Hot Springs.
Crazy snow tree shapes, knarled from the steam at Strawberry Hot Springs, Colorado.
Full moon seen through the steam and snow at Strawberry Hot Springs.

WALMART CANDLES

Walmart shenanigans.
Messing with the 'record a message' toys at Walmart.
It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.
— JOHN STEINBECK

My laugh always seems to be changing. Sometimes it is soft, almost silent - more of a smile and a gesture of the shoulders. But at other times, it follows my mother's laugh - an intake of the breath till the air whistles in my lungs, sounding like a honking goose. When my laugh gets like this, I find that the people around me seem to laugh just a little more. 

And yet, those things I will laugh about do not change. I will laugh at ironies, at silly situations, at compounded bad luck, and at all those wonderful jokes that life plays on me. I have always found Gary Larson's comics to be of the topmost quality.

If I ever want a laugh, I can make my way to the nearest Walmart store, and find myself in the candle section. This is where I like to be, among the oddly named balls of sickly-sweet smelling wax. I love to ruminate over each title, and then there is that surprise as I open the glass top and actually smell the supposed scent of 'icing berry,' only to find that it is more like 'barbie baked a birthday cake out of sugared rainbows and unicorns.' 

Here are some of my more recent favourites:

 

Fresh cut herbs candle at Walmart.
 

Here we have a classic candle scent:

fresh cut herbs

Mmm... I love me some cilantro and basil. (No, really, I do).

 
Coastal wood candle at Walmart. Hilarious candle smells.
 

Now this one is a little more specific.

This candle is for those of us who live nowhere near the sea, so that we might bring that pungent smell of coastal woods into our homes. Please do note: coastal woods are not to be confused with woods of the inland variety.

 
Laundry day candle at Walmart.
 

The smell of laundry day... that day on which I do my laundry.
Yup, that is a great smelling day.

 
Warm Autumn Sweater candle - funny candles at Walmart.
 

This one really takes the cake though...

warm autumn sweater

Because we all know that sweaters have a very distinct smell, depending on their seasonal variety.