More winter

From: Bryan <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 20:00:38 -0000


A few more odds and ends that came to me over the weekend.

A strong sun will also form an icy crust on the snow, albeit not usually a very strong one. But sun and melting weather followed by a quick freeze can create quite thick icy-snow--awful for skiing on.

In windy days here you often get streams of snow blowing across the road in shifting patterns. I call them snow snakes. These are less visible against snow (white on white) but can still be seen sometimes there. They'll happen anytime there is a lip (like with a snow bank) that the wind is blowing the snow over. I'm sure there is a myth or three about them in Sartar. Possibly they are small snow daimones.

Good sized trees in the open (like in hedge rows) often have a real dip in the snow around their trunk, between wind effects and melting from the sun heating their trunks later in winter.

In forests the wind is moderated and the sun blocked, so the snow if far less likely to have a crust on it, or to be packed down at all. Also, low bushes that are covered in snow make a week spot. So walking through the woods can be harder than in the open. On the other hand, snowshoes or skis can be harder to manoeuvre through dense bush (near steads the undergrowth is probably limited, so not so hard).

Mice make tunnels in the grass under the snow, and get around all winter quite well, including right into buildings if they can. Rabbits walk on the snow quite well, and will chew bark off of tender bushes, as will deer (my mother's rose bushes survive the climate up here moderately well, it is getting stripped of bark at the snow line by the local wild life that tends to kill them off).

Around where I live is sugar maple country. The early sap rising in the spring, just as the snow is melting, is sweet, and once boiled down 20:1 makes a nice syrup, or boiled even farther gives you maple sugar. I'm sure sugar maples exist somewhere in glorantha. I figure either up around bear Hsunchen territory in the west, or northern solar country (where this is regarded as the maple's celebrating the return of their emperor). Sugar maples go bright red in the fall, so are no doubt well liked by the lunars too.

The coolest winter effect I ever saw was in France, actually. We went to visit a chateau (I forget which one now) during a cold spell. They grounds included many ornamental ponds, each lined with a stone wally, of varying size and shape. The ground hadn't frozen yet, so the ponds were frozen in the middle to a fair thickness, but the ice thinned gradually towards the edge, never quite touching the stone. We discovered by chance that a stone tossed onto this ice made it ring a pure musical note (no doubt calculable with sufficient research). I'm positive that somewhere in Glorantha someone of pure decadence has such a garden built on purpose, just to make the appropriate music once a year.

--Bryan

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