You wouldn’t think it was spring, Austin, if you were at home this morning, for we had a great snowstorm yesterday, and things are all white this morning. It sounds funny enough to hear birds singing and sleigh-bells at a time. But it won’t last long, so you needn’t think ’twill be winter at the time when you come home.
~ Emily Dickinson
(Letter to William Austin Dickinson, March 24, 1852)
Springtime snowstorms were not uncommon in southern New England a hundred seventy-one years ago. They happened often enough when I was a child, sixty odd years ago. I prepared this post several years ago, hoping that we might get one again and I could use Emily’s words to go along with the weather. But it was not to be and since this is my last spring in New England I decided to post it now, in fond memory of times gone by.
Lovely. You have some wonderful memories of New England to bundle up in your mind and take with you.
Thank you, Peggy. I do. And I know there will be many new memories to be made in my new home, too.
Well, it did snow here A LOT last week (only 15 miles from Amherst), so very apropos!
I’m kind of jealous of your snow this winter but glad to know this post applied to someone after all!
The snow-lovers in my area are miffed because we haven’t had much of the white stuff all winter; the spring-lovers are miffed because we’ve had far too many rainy, cold days. Hard to make everybody happy with a season as changeable as spring!!
So true, there’s always somebody unhappy with the weather no matter what Mother Nature dishes out. Maybe she’s exhausted trying to make everyone a little bit happy at least some of the time. I’m looking forward to the first day we can open the windows. 🙂
Fond memories and lovely poem!
Thank you, Donna!
I like how you’re rising above the inconvenience of your winter snow not inconveniencing you, bravely posting your lovely post in a show of defiance. Well done!
Thank you, Ally! So there, Mother Nature! 🙂
Hi Barbara, I didn’t know you were moving. Hope it goes well. Where are you going?
Hi Rosie, so nice to see you here! We’re moving to North Carolina, Chapel Hill area, to be near our grandchildren. 💙
I like the photo and Emily Dickinson’s poem Barbara … now you have Winter’s last hurrah in your blog and will have to find wonderful new Emily Prose writings and photos to match your new clime and locale.
Thank you, Linda. Since Emily was a New Englander it will be interesting to see how many of her poems and letters I will be able to make use of down south. I’ll probably have to concentrate more on the ones dealing with human nature.
I’ve read more Emily from you then in school, so I’ll look forward to seeing them.
I often spend time flipping through my book of Emily’s poems and am amazed that I keep “finding” new ones that I hadn’t noticed before…
I need to read Emily Dickinson’s poems. We never read any of the classic books or any poetry in high school. When I got to community college, I was soon aware just what a lousy education system Lincoln Park had. Then many years reading books for required classes, but still not classic books and poets. I have a lot of “catching up” to do when I finally retire.
Ah yes, there are so many classics I haven’t read yet. Last year I finally listened to David Copperfield by Charles Dickens on Audible. It used different readers for the different characters which made it so easy to follow. My grandparents used to read Dickens novels to each other. After my grandmother died my grandfather and I decided to read Ivanhoe by Walter Scott together. He had mentioned it was one of his favorites. I’m thinking of trying that again, too, but on Audible this time. For some reason I seem to get more out of the words when I hear them out loud.
I have a long way to catch up on the classics. I have never read any of Thoreau, despite liking to be in nature settings. I have never tried Audible. I know my boss likes history and orders from Chirp for his audio books. Do you just relax and listen to the audio book or do you do things, like tasks, etc. at the same time?
I’ve never heard of Chirp before. Before I started packing I used to listen to books while I was working on jigsaw puzzles in the afternoon. And at night I listen to the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy to put me to sleep. I have tinnitus so listening to someone reading me a story helps me not to focus on the ringing in my ears. When doing chores I listen to music, mostly WMVY Radio, an independent alternative station.
I have never listened to an audio book before. I worked with a woman whose father was blind, so I had heard about audio books quite a while ago as she used to get him books and the orders came to the office. It sounds like a good idea though. I have fallen behind in reading and so there may go my Goodreads goal. We are having severe winds/weather around 9:00 p.m. tonight and overnight, so I will be signing off here and reading a little (I’m a weather worrier and now there is a small chance of a tornado … and my weather radio is not working properly) to keep my mind off the impending storm.
One thing for sure is that audio books take up much less space! It’s kind of magical that I can carry a little library around with me on my cell phone. Your weather has just arrived here this morning, not sure how bad it will get — probably just a lighter version of yours. It’s raining now, a good day for more sorting and packing. Hope you didn’t get a tornado. I wonder how Peggy is doing down there in Arkansas. They can’t seem to get a break!
After I pressed send, I wondered if you had a kindle or used your phone. Your comment answered that thought. I hope you remain unscathed by this ugly weather Barbara. I thought my weather radio was not working properly as it no longer gave the weekly test message orally, but it did flash “weekly test”. I kept re-programming it and finally ordered a new one the other day from Amazon. The alarm didn’t go off for the Friday 9:30 severe weather. I stayed up until about 11:00 to ensure it passed without incident as that could possibly have been tornadic activity. At 1:10 a.m. I awoke to the weather alarm saying Wyandotte, a big city next to my city, would have 60 mph and ping pong-sized hail coming thru at 1:25 a.m. I stayed up until 1:40 a.m. – fine. Then another severe outbreak today at 11:50 a.m. with 60 mph winds and hail … I didn’t hear hail that time and saw no damage outside from the 1:25 a.m. occurrence. We still have 40 mph winds, but I think the precip is done for now. I am not sure I’ll go to Heritage Park tomorrow – their paths were flooded over many times last Spring and I’m sure the roads are flooded and full of debris – I’ll aim for next weekend. Sigh.
We just got rain and wind, thankfully. Sorry you’re having so much trouble with your weather radio alarm. I hope your new one will prove to be trouble-free. Ping pong-sized hail sounds pretty frightening, I can’t imagine it! Our winds are only 25 mph this morning and I didn’t even hear any of the predicted thunderstorms last night.
Well the silly radio did work when it was important, so I won’t worry about not having a spoken Wednesday test message. In the meantime, I ordered a new one from Amazon, so it will wait in the wings. I’m a weather worrier, so it is nice to have. I am glad you didn’t get the severe weather Barbara. I’m already worrying about this next bout of severe weather and possible tornadic activity slated for Wednesday.