SNOW COUNTRY

Woke up early this morning to the sound of snow avalanching off the roof, raising clouds of even more white outside the windows. We're on the edge of snow country up here, plus being high on a mountainside. A dozen kilometers south along the Lake road and there's no snow at all.

Even so, we haven't had nearly as much snow as folks in Niigata and Shinshu, where Echo is from, they've had nearly 4 meters(!) of whiteness; when they shovel through it the walls of snow are more than double their height! As often as not, it's a tunnel. They leave their houses from the second floor! The able ones keep shoveling the deep snow off their roofs before it collapses the house, but some elder folks can't do it.

They interviewed one elder couple on tv, who said that they could hear the house straining under the hourly increasing load, more snow than they'd seen in their lives. The husband used to shovel their roof off, but he's too old now and the whole place is snowed in. And it's early winter yet! I read yesterday that this is Japan's coldest winter in 20 years. We could use some global warming up in Niigata.

For the moment, though, it is supremely beautiful here, with the woodstove glowing and all silent white outside, as the whole world rises into the air...