Snow Day

The More It Snows

The more it snows (Tiddely pom),

The more it goes (Tiddely pom),

The more it goes (Tiddely pom),

On snowing.

And nobody knows (Tiddely pom),

How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),

How cold my toes (Tiddely pom),

Are growing.

~~A. A. Milne  (The House at Pooh Corner)

Note:  Pooh invents and sings this Outdoor Hum for Snowy Weather in The House at Pooh Corner (Chapter One, In Which A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore). 

From Wikipedia: Alan Alexander Milne (18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English writer best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as children's poetry. Milne was primarily a playwright before the huge success of Winnie-the-Pooh overshadowed his previous work. He served as a lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the First World War and as a captain in the Home Guard in the Second World War. Milne was the father of bookseller Christopher Robin Milne, upon whom the character Christopher Robin is based.

Milne stopped writing children's books, and especially about Winnie-the-Pooh, as he felt "amazement and disgust" over the immense fame his son was exposed to, and said that "I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him. I do not want CR Milne to ever wish that his name were Charles Robert."

Milne's poems and stories were a staple of my childhood; I read from the battered books to my own children with the result that Gina and I can insert phrases from Winnie-the-Pooh into conversation, a sort of 'insider' language from a pre-Disney era. 

Was it perhaps the influence of these often read pieces that instilled my preference for an English, as opposed to thoroughly American, mode of expression? 

Having 'hummed' my way through morning chores and welcomed the noonday sun, I had best go downstairs to my sewing, having set the heat at a frugal 68 F. an hour ago.

When I opened the front door at 7:30 a.m. to usher Robert-cat into the morning, the snow-covered porch steps were etched with the evidence of early visitors, most likely the intrepid Titmice who swoop in to pick bits of kibble from the barn cats' tray.

I layered in hood, jacket, boots and gloves to wallow up the lane to the mailbox at 10:30. The wind was bitter and I quickly gave up any thought of coming back via the upper meadow track. 

Cat litter duties tended and back inside.

 Willis and Sally who have been lured from the porch to reconnoiter as far as the woodshed, stepping daintily on Jim's freshly swept path.

The 'woodpecker stump' lost its footing on February 8th during the season of heavy rain and wind.

I've not seen the pileated woodpeckers since, though a smaller Downy flits among the upper branches of the tulip poplars and hickories that line the north ravine. 

The bricks, cleared of snow, will soon provide warmth to furry bottoms.

Yesterday, in advance of the snow, robins bounced across the back field, bluebirds teetered on the power line. 

Today juncos, titmice and an assortment of sparrows swoop in, land and peck, rising in a cloud if I open the door yet are undeterred by the sleepy presence of the two barn cats. 

Willis and Sally, aided by Robert and his late brothers on their daily forays, quickly decimated the population of chipmunks, made inroads on the squirrel tribes, so it hasn't seemed fair to put out feeders.

A few hours of mid-afternoon sunshine before the sky reverted to cloudy.

Unlike the winter snows of remembered years in New England and Wyoming, in Kentucky a 'snow scene' such as this is short-lived.

Fine with me--I'm ready for spring!