Waiting for the Blizzard

While the television airwaves burn with warnings of the impending blizzard and oil trucks race up and down the road to fill customers’ tanks, a lone cardinal sits watching it all, feeling what I’m feeling: an unseemly stillness. Literally, the quiet before the storm. It’s early on Friday morning, and the storm is expected to be in full bloom in Connecticut by mid-afternoon, bringing up to 24 inches of snow.

Meanwhile, Lyn and I go about our morning as usual. I feed Cat Bette, who seems agitated, as if she knows what the storm glass doesn’t yet know: Low pressure is coming. I make our first cup of coffee, and Lyn gives us a hearty start with eggs, bacon and English muffins.

On the road, only people with business seem to be stirring – the letter carrier and last-minute delivery-truckers, along with people bound for grocery stores to pick over the remaining few bottles of water and batteries, bread and milk.

We all know the drill: Keep handy the flashlights and battery radio. Gather as much water as you can because wells won’t work if/when electricity goes out. Make sure cell phones are charged up.

And wait.

It is still morning, and just as the first few flakes begin falling, I do my walkabout and take a few images: 

 


– A gong hanging from a Japanese maple. It is still and silent now, but when the predicted high winds arrive, it will swing and gong like a ship’s bell in heavy seas.

– The fallen tree near the garage. It blew down in the last big storm and now serves as a reminder of what nature can do.

  

– The blue ribbons that are ornamental but also function as a wind gauge. They are still now. This afternoon, however, if predictions become reality, they will look a lot different. When the blizzard gets here.