The walking trail bridges are packed with snow cover, the sides of streets lined with drifts piled high from plowing and shoveling. It is snowing once again today. Many people are tired and complaining about all the snow. Many people complain about winter even before we have any and I wonder why they  live in a place with  all the fully defined seasons. Perhaps some would love to move to  a place such as Florida or southern California but the logistics prevent them, there is work there is family, there is the financing of such a move.

a beautiful thing occurs in the icy winter atmosphere, sun dogs, as seen above

 I am not someone who would opt to live where seasons are monotone. I enjoy the winter, and the spring and the summer ( though that is one I will complain, I would prefer lower humidity) and the autumn. I have always contended, urged on in my thought by many a literary story teller, that living in the extremes of nature makes a person stronger and m ore resilient.

 My city sits on a river. In my adult life I have seen  times of flooding serious enough to  damage and disrupt the city's life. I was here for what was a savage flooding in 2008.In the time since i have become one who frequents the river on my nature walks. I watch the river as it changes seasonally. I know the trees. I have seen trees I langer now, watching as the  earth below them  has dried and crumbled, blown away in drought then been washed away in spring flash flooding.


below is Veteran's Memorial Coliseum just recently restored after the ravages and damage from flooding in 2008

 I watch the water marks on shore to see the levels change. For several years I have been watching a river shrink. The Cedar river that crests over 20 feet has lately been ankle deep in most places. I know this river is evidence of the health of the land here in an agricultural state. The west coast is  achingly, dangerously dry. The Sierra Madres need snow to melt and water the  great California fruit, nut and vegetable basket and it looks like that is not happening. Wherever you live you will see the price of food increased as crops suffer from the western drought.

 This winter every ice, sleet and snowfall I would cheerily remind folks ''we need all the precipitation we can get''. We have had 2 summers of endless sun, cloudless skies, weeks and weeks without rain.Out land was bone dry and precipitation was a rare thing. This winter we have seen a change in pattern. We have received regular snow. North they have received much and that will come to us in spring thaw. Spring thaw is now to be seen, will we melt too fast and have it all wash quickly down from here to the Mississippi and not be able to soak in and help fill our water table and  provide the needed moisture for the lands and agriproduction here? will the cities built up around the waterways be sandbagging come warmer weather? Will spring bring us continuing precipitation and might the midwestern drought be ending?

This intersection , perhaps half a mile from river is part of flood plain, it was the edge of dry land when the river swelled in June 2013

As always, time will tell but also choices humans make in land use, providing for absorbent wetland space and natural watersheds will make a difference. Meanwhile, today it is snowing again and the flakes are beautiful