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A weblog about the politics and affairs of the old and glorious City of Albany, New York, USA. Articles written and disseminated from Albany's beautiful and historic South End by Daniel Van Riper. If you wish to make a response, have anything to add or would like to make an empty threat, please contact me.
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March 31, 2018
Don’t Wanna See No More Snow
Some pictures of this last snowstorm in my neighborhood, may there be no more for a while
It was heavy and wet, and it weighed a lot when you picked it up with a shovel. That last snowfall in the middle of March stayed much longer than it should have, and despite a spell of warm weather now that Spring is officially here we still have unmelted snowbanks in odd places. Where it has melted on the sidewalks all the bits of trash are revealed, and sure enough I’ve been picking it up and grumbling.
Yeah, I hate late season snow as much as you do. But when the snow first fell it was... very nice. It was pretty. It was beautiful. It made ugly things look attractive. But to look at it you had to go out in it while it was falling, something very few people did. Well I did, and as night fell The Wife did. And we took pictures.
The heavy snow kind of stung my face as it came down, but I persevered anyway. Not sure why, I just wanted to look at it. Nobody else was out that’s for sure.
My neighbors, who are Dominican immigrants, still had their Christmas creche up in front of their house. Funny how the Nativity scene, which reportedly happened in an arid region, looks natural to me in snow. The house the neighbors are living in was vacant for about 15 years, they bought the house and renovated it when no one else wanted to. Seems to me a very good reason right there why we should encourage foreigners to emigrate to this country.
Not all of my neighbors are good about shoveling the walks in front of their houses but most are. Some take their time and get around to it, others go out into the storm and maniacally try to fight it as it comes down. These last two snowfalls people attacked it angrily, it was like they just wanted it to go away.
A fresh snowfall can make ugly things that we usually ignore look pretty. For example, this derelict tow truck piled with crap sitting at the end of my street. It looks... okay, it looks a lot better with snow clinging to it than it usually does.
Then there’s another neighbor’s ugly garage with the thick vines all over it. In warm weather the garage is covered by the leaves of the vines, but when the vines are bare it takes a wet snowfall to make the garage look not exactly attractive, but somehow otherworldly.
The wet snow clung to just about anything that was cold and inanimate. Well, it stuck to me as I roamed about, but it immediately melted and soaked through my clothes. I had a hoodie pulled over my wool hat but when I faced the wind it acted as a snow catcher, which kinda defeated the purpose.
For sure the heavy snow brought down branches of the maple trees in Lincoln Park lining Morton Avenue. The maples grow like crazy around here, extending long limbs and out-competing other varieties of broadleaf trees (but of course not the pine trees.) After serious wind or after weather events like this the branches come down, it’s expected. Some of trees in the park look mighty strange after having dropped so many branches.
As the sun was going down The Wife set out across the park to attend some event or other, I forget what it was. She was much taken with how pretty it all looked, so she whipped out her phone and recorded her progress through the blinding driving storm that lashed with fury.
Most things in the City had been cancelled, which seemed to me to be excessive since it really wasn’t that severe of a storm. But the predictions had been dire and more than likely no one wanted to go outside and look at it.
The funny thing was that once she got well into the park she started to see footprints where people had been clumping back and forth through the snow. The tracks didn’t look that old. But there was no one else around when she came by, not until she got to the State Plaza on the other side of the park.
On the other side she happened upon one of the many bizarre things that one can find around the State Plaza, the Eternal Flame For Missing Persons. This seems to me to be a rather broad category that is hard to define, but whatever. A month earler the flame got wet and went out for a while, much to the delight of TV news show content providers. It seemed to be burning well through the wet snowstorm.
The next morning I found that a big maple branch had fallen in back of my properties up the street, it bent the rickety old metal fence like it was rubber. Since the big branch was leaning precariously on the tree I got out my chainsaw, but it had been sitting too long and was only good for at most one cut before it sputtered and quit. I managed to drop the branch and cut it up a bit, but until I do some maintenance on the chainsaw those branches will stay scattered across the backyard.
So hopefully that’s all the snow for this season. I apologize to anyone who is sick and tired of looking at this crud but looked at these pictures anyway. Maybe you’ll want to come back and look at them in July when it’s horribly hot, or September when the heat of summer lingers past when it’s supposed to quit. You just might appreciate the cool images.
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Posted by:Leo
Posted on:04/05/2018
Comments:
I generally figure Easter Sunday as the last likely day for snow in Albany. That didn't work out this year. At least Monday's snow took care of itself before I had to worry about a 24-hour-rule violation.
Posted by:Roger
Posted on:04/07/2018
Comments:
From your lips to Allah's ears
