Still Winter

  • Post published:03/08/2011
  • Post comments:4 Comments

It rained heavily all Monday night and continued lightly through the morning. Then the temperatures plummeted to 24 degrees. When I went out to my car at 11 am it was covered with ice, and all the locks and doors were frozen tight. I wasn’t going anywhere.

At 3 pm the sun began to shine brilliantly. It turned the trees and shrubs into crystal sculptures. Happily, even though the temperatures were still in the low 20s, the ice melted off the car and released the doors.

Autumnal Scenery by Orra White Hitchcock

Fortunately I can enjoy other scenes in my mind’s eye. Recently I traipsed down to the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College to see the Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863) An Amherst Woman of Art and Science exhibit. I expected to see  delicate botanical drawings, and I did, but I also enjoyed her landscapes, landscapes that are very familiar to me, and most unexpectedly, the large classroom charts that she made to help her husband, Edward Hitchcock, teach the natural sciences at Amherst College.  You will be hearing more about  Orra here soon.  Don’t forget today is International  Women’s Day, and  it is Women’s History Month when we make a particular effort to explore the lives of intelligent, skilled and talented women we may have lost sight of.  Last March I wrote about landscape architect Beatrix Farrand and you can read about her here.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Layanee

    I love those ‘jewels’ of winter. I hope they are behind me here but one never knows.

  2. Corner Garden Sue

    Hi Pat,
    Thanks for your comment on my critters post. Yes, the zones don’t always mean the same from place to place, but they give us some idea of what can grow there. That ice looks nasty! I hope you get a good thaw soon. Did you take the photos in your background? Now they really make me shiver!

  3. Pat

    Sue – Yes, I took the background photos too. We are expecting a thaw with lots of heavy rain! After last year’s drought I treasure every drop of precipitation.

  4. Carolflowerhill

    Oh, Pat I recognize that icy landscape . . . we had it here too and I missed my painting class. I am even more excited to see the Hitchcock exhibit!

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