IN LIVING COLOR DECEMBER CHALLENGE

Snowflakes are Pretty — But Pretty Challenging, Too!

A photographic walk after 32 centimetres of snow

All photographs featured in this story are taken by the author and cannot be reused without permission.

It’s something I love and loathe.

Snow.

It’s incredibly pretty as it gracefully hurtles out of the sky and settles soundlessly on any solid surface in its firing line. Flakes somehow wrap themselves around power lines and follow the curves and lines of structures as they clump together and start piling up.

A smaller gathering — and a touch of melting — can create some interesting shapes. Look at this bunny!

Through a child’s eyes, snow means fun. How cool is it to build a snowman out of something that fell out of the sky?

But in great volumes, the white stuff causes chaos. It can make adults smile and curse in one sentence.

Tree branches snap under its weight. Traffic snarls as cars slide and skate It’s heavy to move from driveways and paths Be warned of its potential wrath

On the news, there was a short clip from the Heart and Stroke Foundation warning of the signs of a heart attack. All too often, they can happen when shovelling snow, especially the heavy stuff. After all, its weight fractures branches, downs trees and severs power lines.

I’m lucky. I have a garage and live in an apartment building. There’s no clearing or shovelling for me!

New to town? Good luck knowing what street is what — and where the stop signs are.

Five days after the big dump, it is still picture-book winter outside. Nary a breath of wind and mild subzero temps have kept the flakes where they fell. I’m incredulous, as usually the elements have either blown or melted the spectacle away by now.

Throw in a touch of blue sky, the scale of gorgeousness flips to the extreme.

As night falls, the Christmas and street lights shimmer under the crystals.

Come the weekend the forecast does call for positive temperatures. This see-sawing is what I don’t like about a Montréal winter; the snow will melt and form large puddles or dribble water across sidewalks and then freeze over as soon as the temps plummet again.

Then we’re dealing with a skating rink; my worst fear is falling over and breaking bones.

I didn’t grow up with such harsh winters, and as much as snow is pretty, you can see why it’s pretty challenging too. But, Anne Bradstreet, the first recognized New World poet is right:

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

All photos were taken by the author on either an iPhone 12 or a Canon Rebel T6. Thanks, JoAnn Ryan, editor-in-chief at In Living Color for this December Challenge!