Little Bang Theory

An Update, While I Can. October 29, 2011

Well, our Odd Year continues, with snow in October.  Not that we never had that before, but it’s pretty rare – the last significant October snowfall I recall was back in 1987, when our first daughter was two months old.  Pagan Sphinx and I were living in Great Barrington, MA when a whopper Nor’Easter hit, dropping thousands of trees which still had their leaves, and as many pines which couldn’t rely on the stability afforded by frozen ground.  We had something like ten days without power, no heat or refrigeration or running water, and no way to get anywhere – the roads were mazes of downed trees, live wires and stranded vehicles.  That kinda sucked, though we all survived it.

And here we go again.  Overnight our local area is expecting something like a foot of wet, heavy snow, and we still have plenty of trees with their leaves on.  Power outages are spreading as I type this, so I’ll keep it succinct in case I lose power.  We have about ten inches in the driveway, the roads are nearly impassable, and my sweetie Susan and her cats have already lost power.  This has the potential to get ugly.

This past Thursday afternoon and evening fired a warning shot across our collective bows, with a smaller storm to get us prepared for this larger one (you should have seen the lines at the tire stores!)  And I got a few shots of it.

Here’s your typical Autumn maple leaf:

…in an atypical setting:

(different leaves, same shoot)

…in an unusual juxtaposition of autumn and winter:

The road in the valley cleft down left of center is Route 2, the Mohawk Trail, my current job site.  It’s a real mess, closed since Irene blew through, and is a hub of activity, with many work crews aiming at getting this stretch of road open before winter.

And no, we weren’t counting on this series of storms, so we may be set back a bit in our efforts, but we’ll make it happen.

My next post (if I don’t lose power and internet access) will be of the mayhem wrought by Saturday night’s Big Snow.  It’ll be pretty, if the predicted winds lag significantly behind sunrise.  Otherwise, it will be only interesting, and a good bit sloppy.

Photos tomorrow, In Sh’Allah.