The weather forecast this weekend called for violent thunderstorms followed by snow, a healthy swipe through the list of extremes that nature has to offer. The thunderstorms were so successful on Friday and Saturday, in fact, that cable service was wiped out in most of the city by Saturday afternoon. No Weather Channel updates. My most precise memory of the snow forecast was that it was presumed to be coming to Birmingham pre-dawn on Sunday. I awoke around 5:00 a.m. on Sunday and peeked out the blinds. The only sign of snow that I saw was a slight dusting on the back lawn. I crawled back into bed for another hour or two of sleep.
When I got up, slightly past 6, I went directly to the kitchen and put the coffee on. One look out the window and I could see that the landscape had changed in just 60 minutes. I grabbed my camera and walked out onto the front porch.
There hasn’t been this much snow in Birmingham since the “blizzard” of 1993 (right year?), and I wasn’t living in this house then. Here is the first photograph of my bungalow in snowy regalia. Notice that I still haven’t picked up the Sunday New York Times from the front yard.
My 1920s neighborhood street was q u i e t . . .
The crape myrtles that line the sidewalks had just begun showing their buds during the past week, while temperatures had reached into the 70s. Now, instead of pollen dust, they were covered with some other fine stuff.
The ancient and diminutive dogwood tree near my front porch looked as if it was in full bloom. When it actually is in full bloom, in the warmth of early Spring, it looks like it is covered with snow. I found some harmonious consistency in this.
I walked down the street and back up, stepping on the asphalt rather than the sidewalk or the lawns, careful not to disturb the blanketing of snow. Approaching my house from the west, the bank of creeping rosemary caught my eye. Covered with snow, it looked like it was crawling to life, with its woody branches reaching out, as if trying to break from their cover, like tentacles groping in the dark. Creeping rosemary or creepy rosemary, or just my overactive imagination? You decide.
It was getting cold, my hands were getting numb, and the camera was getting wet. I made one last stop in the backyard before heading inside to grab that first cup of coffee. I spied my garden gnome pinwheel, spinning with joy in the cold wind. He once inhabited a Peace Plant given to me by my mother on one of my business’s early anniversaries, easily fifteen years ago. Now he resides alongside the garage among the monkey grasses.
Time for coffee!
3 responses so far ↓
1 Laura // Mar 1, 2009 at 9:53 PM
And to think all we have on our West Coast March 1st is sunny skies, wispy white clouds, air temperatures in the 80s, and every imaginable springtime flower bursting from underground bulbs to greet the warmth!
Sigh. Only an ideal day for an outdooor swim.
2 Cuz // Mar 1, 2009 at 11:41 PM
Beautiful! Fun to see your home and street! Thought of you as we ate Primo’s guacamole at Cameron’s party yesterday…xoxo M
3 kim waites // Mar 3, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Nice story! thanks for sharing! I slept through it all!
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