Mama Nature has her little ways. Last weekend she showed northern Michigan who’s boss. In fact, thousands of homes in Antrim County are still cold and dark. It’s beautiful here in the winter, and terrible, and fierce, and we are powerless, whether we have electricity or not. But we hang in there, haul each other out of the ditch, hook up a generator, pile into the truck and go find breakfast. Welcome to Jotunheim, the land of the frost giants.
Click below for larger individual images
Posted in: Adventures outdoors, Up North in Michigan
Carsten
March 6, 2012
All this snow must create a roaring silence?
Beautiful pictures Gerry.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
Thank you Carsten. It is ever so much more beautiful to walk through. The quiet has been rather broken by the chainsaws and the generators and the plows and the trucks from the electric company. And the occasional gunshot crack of a treetop breaking off and the big thud when it hits the ground thirty or fifty feet below. Most of that is over now. We look forward to some peace.
lynnekovan
March 6, 2012
Great shots! It does look rather CHILLY though! Will it be like this when I move to Nova Scotia I wonder…!!
Gerry
March 6, 2012
Mama Nature can create havoc anywhere. If it isn’t a blizzard it’s a tornado or a hurricane or an earthquake or a plague of locusts. But Nova Scotia offers fine compensations, and you will have the excellent guidance of Amy-Lynn and Sybil.
Joss
March 6, 2012
I’ve never been without power for more than half an hour, having always lived in the suburbs. I used to have a Rayburn/Aga range, which would have come in very useful in a longer power cut, and I used to think the chance to use it in an emergency would have been fun. But not for long. We aren’t prepared for that kind of thing here. I have very few candles, or wind-up torches. (Hot water bottles, though, we have, and plenty of them!) I like to think I’m a coper, but really I’ve never been tested.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
You know, I am very taken with these Agas that I read about. I wonder if I could have one of those . . . It’s good to have emergency supplies and plans for how to use them. [Note to self: replace the chimney for the oil lamp!!!] I am pretty sure you are a very good coper. You strike me as a person who faces facts and takes action. It’s very bracing.
kanniduba
March 6, 2012
So so beautiful Gerry, but being without power is no fun at all. When I lived in Saratoga we lost power ALL the time with no rhyme or reason…forget the snowstorms. Losing power was a sure thing then. Here, we lose it rarely, and I can’t remember the last time we lost it during the winter…we have been very fortunate.
I hope you all get your power (and comfort) back soon. 🙂
Gerry
March 6, 2012
Thank you. The Writing Studio and Bait Shop is all powered up again. Lots of other people in Antrim County are still out, though.
Ed LaFreniere
March 6, 2012
Hang in there, everyone! Last summer we lost power for 10 days in Connecticut thanks to Hurricane Irene, and many parts of the state against lost it for even longer after a freak October snowstorm. Life WILL return to normal. So long as the pipes don’t freeze (yours and your house’s!) you’ll start loving your power company once again. Goodnight Irene!
Gerry
March 6, 2012
We shall all hang in together or we shall all hang ourselves separately, something like that. I have heard so many funny stories about people exhausting themselves to make sure an elderly person living in an isolated spot was OK – only to discover said elder doing just fine, thank you, with the woodstove and the kerosene lantern and the food put by from the summer’s harvest . . . and would they like to come in and have a nice cup of coffee and some of this gingerbread? Because they look cold . . .
I will never love my power company for all sorts of good reasons, but I am insanely fond of the line repair crews. The thought of ten days without power is sobering indeed.
Martha
March 6, 2012
It looks like you had quite a bit of damage in your area. We didn’t. Not right here, anyway. We didn’t get terrible winds with that snow and that was a great relief. 1 1/2 hours without power is OK by me, just not days without power. Romantic to some, inspiring to others and a nightmare to many. But as long as our houses are still standing and the snow stays outside the front door, those of us in the snowlands are just fine.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
We had wind, but not so much as all that. For the most part it was the weight of the snow on the branches that brought the trees down. In fact, branches are still falling. The state parks in the Traverse City area are closed to walkers. (The lane behind me is closed to walkers, to, if they have any sense at all.)
It is very beautiful out there. I love it. Now if that big branch would just spring back into place instead of falling on my house . . .
shoreacres
March 6, 2012
Your photos remind me of a winter visit to the Black Forest. I was blessed to stay with a family in a traditional house, with the cattle below and Mama up above, baking cinnamon rolls and bread at every hour of the day, and it was wonderful. It snowed while I was there – about 16 inches or so. I had the experience of walking through the woods in the midst of it, and the silence was so deep it had texture. And the smell of snow – I could smell it, watching your slide show.
Just wonderful.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
I was thinking on Saturday night that living over the livestock would have its advantages. The heat would rise, for one thing.
But snow smells better. I’m glad you caught the scent in the slideshow.
shoreacres
March 6, 2012
It took me a bit to find it, but here it is:
Spellbound
The night is darkening ’round me,
the wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
and I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
and yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
wastes beyond wastes below;
but nothing dear can move me;
I cannot, will not go.
Emily Brönte
Gerry
March 6, 2012
That is one that I should memorize for Stone Circle. Thank you.
tootlepedal
March 6, 2012
Impressive weather and pictures.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
Thank you. I tried to get a photo of some birds–I know they were there, I could hear them–but I never spotted them.
tootlepedal
March 6, 2012
We’ve got those sorts of birds round here too.
P.j. grath
March 6, 2012
It was worth waiting to see your slide show, Gerry. (I had to wait until we got to Northport for a high-speed connection.) And now you’ve reminded me, via these pictures, that I need to get myself to the store and buy camera batteries. Mine are EXHAUSTED from being snowed in for four days and called on unceasingly!
Gerry
March 6, 2012
Thank you, P.J. You got some wonderful photos, too – my favorites being the house from the front and the broad sweep of the land with the barn. I’ve noticed that batteries run down quickly in the cold. My camera uses those square rechargeable ones, and I carry the spares inside my coat, in a pocket next to me where they stay warm. (Fat lot of good it does me, as I end up having to unzip and unbutton and untie all the warm bundling in order to extract a fresh battery, by which time I am a bit run down myself and must go back home to recharge. Well, maybe one more photo . . . )
Anna
March 6, 2012
Oh my, such gorgeous snow scenes! I missed the snow so as we didn’t get any appreciable snow this winter. We had a warm winter and ending with a lot of wind, thunderstorms and tornadoes. Nice to see a winter wonderland. 🙂
Gerry
March 6, 2012
I’m glad you liked them, Anna. Be careful what you say, though – we had begun to speak of winter in the past tense too, and look what happened to us! I actually like thunderstorms, but I would not wish a tornado on anyone, especially not anyone who takes such stunning photos of the prairie.
Louan Lechler
March 6, 2012
Wonderful, wonderful! The photos are full of wonder, as is the Bronte poem.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
I’m glad you liked them, and the poem too. I’m going to practice. I have until June after all.
Dawn
March 6, 2012
It’s just beautiful. But I remember…seems nice to just look and not have to actually shovel. But then I feel bad, like I’m taking only the good and leaving YOU with the shoveling. Which I guess I am. I owe you one.
Gerry
March 6, 2012
Thank you Dawn. I believe I will go look at Katie now, leaving the brushing to you . . .
Molly
March 7, 2012
Wow – quite a show mama nature put on there. I’ve heard tell of plenty of folks still waiting for power.
I was so happy to hear (see) someone refer to Jotunheim. My kids love Norse mythology, and they can’t understand why other kids don’t know what they’re talking about when they refer to Yggradsil and Valhalla. When they were littler, I used to call “time-out” ginnungagap but they really, really hated that, so I stopped (I’m flexible where I can be).
Gerry
March 7, 2012
She was in a mood, she was.
I read A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarök recently and it frightened me so much I’ve been into the Norse mythology books as a sort of hair-of-the-dog. I, too, try to be flexible where I can be. It’s often a stretch.
Wendi
March 7, 2012
Please do memorize the poem for Stone Circle Gerry…dedicate it to the poor big pine tree on the north that has lost most of its branches to the storm.
Gerry
March 7, 2012
Oh no. I hope you didn’t have any other damage up there.
I’m on my way over to Bayview now. The AC Road Commission is back in here running the chainsaws and the chipper to get rid of the branches and I’m tired of listening to it. Glad they’re doing it, mind you – this is not a complaint! – but my ears are tired. I live a peaceful life. I’m not used to all this excitement.
Sybil
March 8, 2012
I love Carsten’s reference to a “roaring silence”. Though I suspect it’s not that quiet with the chainsaws going ….
Gerry
March 8, 2012
I liked it too. It really can be quiet with a thick blanket of snow over everything. Almost shockingly quiet, as if the world had ended.
flandrumhill
March 11, 2012
I was talking with a friend about Jotunheim this past week. She had used it as a title for a poem she’d written. I’d never heard the word before. And here it is again.
We haven’t had anything close to that type of snowfall this past winter. It’s quite otherworldly.
Gerry
March 11, 2012
Nothing like a little March blizzard to bring the frost giants to mind. I’m curious about the poem.