Yesterday I told him, “Feels like snow.” Which I have always believed to be a Canadian phrase, specifically a Saskatchewanian phrase. Is it? Do you say it too? Robert also uses this phrase and I cannot tell if he has always said it or if it’s one of those cross over phrases we use between the two of us and we simply cannot recall the origin of it or who actually said it first and brainwashed the other into repeating it. We brainwash each other all the time. I guess it’s true that when you love someone long enough you begin to become them. Anyway, I told him, “Feels like snow.” And he said it back at me and I felt the temperatures dropping and the wind growing mean and I had to let our big diesel truck warm up longer than I usually let it warm up because it felt a little creaky and stiff and it’s very good for diesel engines to have luxurious wake-ups. Big trucks are quite like me in that regard.
This morning, I woke up rather early, looked out the windows and sure enough, there was snow! I rose, penned a couple of letters to far away friends in the blue light of dawn, delighted in the whistle of the kettle on the stove top, watched the snow fall on my cow skull collection outside the big kitchen window, ate a little breakfast and then went out to ramble in it all — to tumble around in the weather like a big, round, lonesome weed. It was beautiful, stark, stormy and it felt awfully fresh to have my feathers backcombed by the wind. Wintertime is my happy place.
Items of note:
I watched the 2011 version of Great Expectations this week. Lord have mercy. It is beautiful. Gillian Anderson is perfectly disturbing as Miss Havisham. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
On the bedstand: Seven Gothic Tales, Gift From The Sea, Wildwood, The Language of Flowers, All-American Poem, and I found a clearance copy of Lebovitz’s Pilgrimage while in the city this week! It’s gorgeous!
Playing in the studio: Mack & Ryan (naturally), Brooke Waggoner, The Goldberg Variations and The White Buffalo.
Now I must skedaddle. I’m halfway through an enormous enameling project I hope to finish up next week. Hope you are all well and cozy on this fine weekend!
I am loving your blurred focus details lately Jillian
and envying your snow flakes.
We say (or at least I say) It smells like snow – like rain I suppose.
xx
Oof…that rain, in winter, really gets in your bones. Doesn’t it? Stay warm, chickadee!
I say “it smells like snow” too – man I love that smell. p.s. I love your photography.
Thank you, Karen!
Definitely “feels like snow”…… Same happens in Denver. You can always feel it, most Denverites also say it. And always out loud, to strangers even, like “Good Day! Feels like snow! or ” a storms a brewing, I can feel it in my bones, have a good one!” haha…
May you have a peaceful weekend, and the crunch of snow under your feet!
That’s just what I had!
Growing up in Central Oregon we would say “it smells like snow.” I smelled it as early as September this year on the high desert. We may be in for quite a winter!
Personally, I’m hoping it’s a humdinger!
yup: “feels like snow.”
it’s a northern idiom, for sure. we say it here, also, in the alpine hinterlands of alaska.
wow-your-mix-of-colours.
even farley is wearing a variance of colours ’round his neck.
[i love his snowy old-man face, by the way. with age comes wisdom.]
i’m in my happy place now: winter. i know it’s the same for you.
xx
I have rainbow dogs!!! They like the color too.
Winter FOREVER!
I grew up in Wisconsin. “Feels like snow” was a common enough phrase in the northwoods. Now, I’m in New Mexico, longing, longing, for just one snowflake.
Your photos do my heart good.
Oh…you poor, snowflakeless thing…but NM is beautiful!
Oh! You noisy little plume, you!
I love your pictures. I always do, but this batch is particularly good. They really capture that end-of-fall-winter’s-coming feeling. Where it gets dark early, and little tiny snowflakes fall from low hanging clouds. It’s such a bleak color palate- and then you’re there! boom! Chroma! I like the orange hat.
Thanks for the heads up on Great Expectations. I loved that book, and I’m looking forward to revisiting the story.
I too just picked up “Gift from the Sea” just a few days ago at the local used book shop. It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? I hadn’t heard of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. I may have to investigate further.
Have you read “The Solace of Open Spaces” by Gretel Ehrlich? I almost feel silly asking, as I’m so sure you have. But on the slim chance that you haven’t, you MUST. Especially given your recent encounter with a shepherd. And your love of open spaces.
That’s all for now. Good luck on your enameling project! Can’t wait to see the finished product!!
Love from Beth
Beth,
Yup. End of fall, winter coming…that’s the feel out there right now. Everything is so sleepy and quiet and stark. The in between of everything is raw and wonderful.
“Gift from the Sea” is lovely. Quiet. I’ve enjoyed it very much.
I haven’t read “The Solace of Open Spaces”! — I’ll look into it!
X
I’m happy to lend you my copy, if you like! I’ve also got a Terry Tempest Williams book I think you’d enjoy- I think I mentioned it to you before. “When Women Were Birds.” Let me know if you’re interested.
You can send your address to me at betha42@gmail.com.
Kiss that sweet Tater pup for me. He looks so majestic in his latest portrait.
such a lovely and transporting selection of photographs! i love the one with your fingers peeking through the mitten, holding the tiny, fluffy sprig. you romanticize the snow, and certainly the early and gentle snowfalls are exquisitely romantic.
i now say “it feels like snow”. before, i used to say “it smells like snow”, but since breaking some bones i feel it before i can smell it. i thought that was another old wive’s tale, but my physical therapist assures me that it is not. perhaps i shall have to don my most vibrant colors and face it bravely, yes?
Always bravely.
And there is a certain feel to coming snow…I haven’t broken any bones yet so I don’t get the aches and pains. But there’s a feeling to the air. I can’t explain it…but it’s unmistakable.
I have been waiting for snow for at least a month now. Here in Finnland we tend to get quite a bit of it, which is lovely. These days I’ve noteced how every year snow falls later and later in the year.
I have’nt heared anyone saying “it feels like snow” nor ” it smells like snow” Ilike it tho, They’re lovely sayings both of them.
Ps. What a beautiful hat you have. Gorgeous color! Looks good on you.
Thanks, doll!
I’ve definitely said both “feels like snow” and “smells like snow.” I’ve lived most of my life in NYS not far from the Canadian border, so I’m not sure if it’s a cross-border influence or just something that comes with the climate here. Speaking of, we are having an unusually warm weekend (temps pushing 60*F) and it’s freaking me out! I so want it to feel like snow!
Love Gift from the Sea – its been at my bedside for years.
Happy projecting – looking forward to seeing the results! 🙂
We had a few warm days like that last week…like, too warm for a cardigan…it was awful.
At first it looks like you’re out on the sage flats, but I can barely see, through the snow, the mountains behind you!! Ahhhh! Isn’t it the best. Being out there rejoicing in the snow and the land and not seeing anyone for miles. You’re Idaho’s snowflake greeter! xoxo
HEE HEE! Almost tricked you! 🙂
Snowflake greeter…I like that.
In New England we tend to say it ‘looks like snow’ or it ‘smells like snow.’ I love that smell/look! We had our first taste of it last week – morning flurries that didn’t stick.
Right now it is very ‘Novembery” out: gray skies, bare trees, cold.
I love your brilliant pop of color out on the sage!
In the winter here, someone has to bring the chroma and that someone is ME!
Minnesota, and it’s slightly more like, “It feels like snow, eh?”. Wintertime is my happy place, too. I’m a kid at the window every morning, either waiting for it, or marveling at it! Good times ahead 🙂
GUFFAW!!!
I can just HEAR you saying that!
Me too, a kid at the window. And the first snow is the most magical one. Isn’t it?
I’ve woken my own sleeping kids in the very middle of the night to see a first snow! More than once 😉
Wildwood is such an amazing book. And the illustrations! Did you know there is a Book II called Under Wildwood? Oh, and I LOVE your orange hat.
There are TWO Wildwoods?!!
My orange hat loves you back!
Lovely-lovely smatterings!
In Chicago, my family usually says “feels like snow” or “looks like snow” !
…and has it snowed there yet?
beautiful scenery, all of it! i don’t think it’s just a saskatchewan expression, but canadian maybe. i definitely know what “feels like snow” feels like, even though it doesn’t happen very often around these parts. loved wildwood and under wildwood, can’t wait for the third one coming out early next year.
There are THREE Wildwoods???!!!!
I (and my husband) grew up on Vancouver Island where it definitely feels like rain! Now that we live in Niagara we still use that phrase, as well as “feels like snow”.
Can’t wait to see the results of the enameling!
You’ve lived in some beautiful places!
HA!
I had a feeling it wasn’t a Canadianism!
Thanks for all these wonderful comments, folks.
I cherish your presence here.
X
God is in the details! Love these close-up photos. I have a copy of “Gift From the Sea” that has grown older along with me. I pull it out periodically and read it through life changes. Each time it feels new – and profound.
I think I will be doing the same with my copy…
Wildwood is one of Hannah’s most favorite books! We gave her a print from it for Christmas last year. Carson Ellis also illustrated her very most favorite series, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. I had to agree to read that series before Hannah would read Harry Potter and now she loves Harry Potter as I knew she would. We’re planning a trip to Orlando to visit Hogwarts.
And now I’m off to search for your borscht recipe. I have a bowl of chopped beets and carrots but I can’t remember what to do next!
Smells like rain.
Smells like snow.
Usually, the rain is more a sense of light…you can see the heaviness in the clouds. Snow comes as a surprise, so often (or here, not often enough).
Loving the randomness of your music, dear! Very suitable for all studio goings on.
I truly am enjoying going through your blog posts–what an inspiring life you live. I too am a person who is happiest enjoying the simpler things in life and spending my days roaming outside with my boyfriend and pup. Look forward to seeing more of your adventures! I have just gotten started, but my lifestyle and travel blog about life with your dog is seekandscout.net, Cheers!