The snow banks are melting, almost gone but still lingering in shadows and corners. The wind has been howling near gale force since late yesterday afternoon.  I thought  I would take a look at the snow photos I took late last month. It’s been a long time dealing with the-snow-that-won’t-melt.  Friday it was near 60 degrees, one spring like day and it’s in the 30′s again. . .

January 21, 2011

The first storm caught New York’s snow plows off guard. Snow piled up everywhere. When roads were finally cleared we went out to the Mall to take care of some bills. The parking lot was filled with small mountains of snow.

We Parked near this long miniature mountain range.

It looked like this  through the windshield.

January 27, 2011

We woke up to this a week later.

Very pretty  but you can see that the last snow had not begun to melt before we got the new 12-18″.

Take a closer look at how the snow piled up  in the fence and  wire plant supports. It looked like a wedding cake, above in the right side of the photo.  Below the fence started to fill in like a clogged sieve.

The front porch was covered again but not so deep. There was wind during this storm and it  made the snow wrap things as well as pile up on everything.  We had to mive the recycling  container and a trash can onto the front porch because it was too difficult to shovel a path around the porch to get to them.  There was  simply no place to put what you shovel out of  the way. 

Our cars were buried but the roads were relatively clear if you could dig the car out to go anywhere.

The snow piled high on the birdbath in our front yard,  the rhododendrons have really been pushed out of shape. I hope not many branches have broken.

Our neighbor Bill was out with his camera too.

Snow wrapped ballusters on the front porch.

Yes, I was out there with a shovel and broom in my birkenstocks.

Trying to free the vehicle. . .

Looking up Tysen Street From our house  position in the street.

A little further up toward Cassidy. The trees looked so nice with the snow on their branches.

Tysen Street after Cassidy.Looking down Cassidy toward Clinton Street.

January 29,2011

We went into the city a couple days later, I was surprised to see ice on the water,  it’s not usually cold long enough for the up river ice to get down to the harbor. There was a lot, it tends to gather in the currents around the south end of Manhattan.  I haven’t seen this  for at least ten years and I don’t remember seeing so much ice.

Back home on Tysen Street our paths are narrow.

The trees are still wrapped in snow coats.

Before 5 PM the street has few cars, but each car has its place.  Parking in neighborhoods has become almost impossible, especially after people arrive home from work.

Because of the early evening of this short day season, we have added lights in the greenhouse to extend daylight for the orchids. The lights turn off at 7 PM.

On the eve of the 26th a grand snow storm arrived. The snow came down as a fog of sand sized flakes carried on fast and blustery wind.

The next morning, no one was moving, it was still very cold outside and the winds continued  even as the sun was bright under blue skies.

Snow was blown into the space between the front door and the storm door.
The front porch was completely covered with about a foot of snow. This has only been happening the past 2 of 23 years. 

It only looks like about 11 inches on the deck table, but drifts were over three feet  in places.

Colman dug a path to the greenhouse, I’m adding that photo to compare with the ‘before’ shot above.

These guys, Dante and Demetrius were working on  our neighbor Bill’s walks and driveway,  I got them to open our sidewalk and then do Fay and Robert’s. 

Around midnight I got an email asking how we were doing and asking for photos.  I braved the wind and cold to make a few night shots to email to our friends in the deep south.

This morning it’s a lot warmer(?), the sun was shining into  the kitchen and our Tama Electra Camellia is blooming profusely.

There is no place to put the snow,  it’s just being piled up where ever we can pile it.

Our neighbor Michael is digging out. 

A look down Tysen Street.

The wind gave our car a nose job, looks like a whale.

Bill’s car in its snow slot.

The snow piled up in front of Bille and Karl’s home.

Karl out enjoying the warmer, windless day.

The snow drifted so high behind the sycamores that we couldn’t get the walk  entirely cleared.

Adi is cleaning off the cars. 
Henry has been helping me by watching while I type.

It was a lazy, dark and very quiet morning. Yesterday, the snow plows were coming down Tysen street almost hourly until midnight. There were no scraping sounds of big trucks this morning and no sounds of people moving about. I got out of bed to look at the snowfall and was surprised to see that the front porch was covered right up to the front door with a 5 inch layer of powdery snow. Snow had even collected in the space behind the storm door, when I opened it, the door scraped an arc in the snow covered deck. 

I looked out the back door at our deck and  snow piled really high on our table, new snow on top of about 3 inches of the last storm’s remnants. I went back to bed, it was obvious nothing was going to happen fast today.

About 10 we got up to attack the day. It was obvious that the city had been sleeping in and was waking to the task of digging out.

Some bird tracks on a neighbor’s porch that was spared the deep snow covering mine.

My next door neighbor Gary was out shoveling his sidewalk while I was doing mine.  We’ve been having flurries all morning.

Snow plows didn’t arrive here until the late afternoon.  My ruler shows the depth of the snow on Tysen Street.

This afternoon it’s been pleasantly cool, the snow is melting and  falling off of the trees. Colman shoveled a path to the greenhouse in our 10 inches of snow. Henry wouldn’t go outside. I went out to make a little video from Henry’s perspective, I imagine this is what he would have seen if he followed us outside.  So far he’s only stuck his nose out the door.  No paws in wet snow.

After I made the video, the sky cleared and it got a lot brighter. Here are a few shots.

Henry in a warm, well lit spot.

We’re getting a big snow storm. It seems strange to call it a storm while the winds are calm and the snow is falling quietly.   It’s really building up on the branches and some are already breaking under the weight.

Tysen street about 1PM today.

And the back yard about the same hour.

Here’s a video taken  at the back door and while standing on the front porch.  It’s so cold out that my camera stops working, it tells me “lens error, please restart camera”  that happened while I was on Columbus circle last week when the wind was blowing and it was much colder.

It’s after 3PM now and I’ve taken a few more photos. The snow has been coming down steadily since we got home from the Y.  Here’s a shot of Tony’s house  across Gary’s garden as seen from my front porch.  A guy on a bicycle passed just before I took these pictures.

The redbud between our house and Gary’s.  The snow looks about 3 inches deep on the branches.

It even has built up on the chain link fence, the wind keeping it growing to one side.

Overhead in the back yard, branches are being lowered by the snow’s weight.

Thursday, January 28th 2010

The day started early and cold. It was snowing, but because the roads weren’t yet holding much snow, we thought it would be all right leaving for New Jersey in the tail end of the rush hour.

Once we had crossed  on the Outerbridge Crossing the snow had stopped, as we got further on the Garden State Parkway it looked as if there hadn’t been any snow there at all. Colman and I were the second and third visitors to arrive.  This arrangement of plants greeted us as we entered the greenhouse.

Anthony Silva, Colman and Joe Silva.

A greenhouse cat found me and rode on my shoulders for the first walk through the main greenhouse. She felt like a kitten but they said she is about 12 years old.

I like this green orchid, the blooms form a ring around the pot edge making a wreath under a canopy of bold, broadly ribbed leaves.

There are a great number of green cymbidiums in bloom, this end of a bench that went around a corner and about a third of the length of the greenhouse.

This is a species paphiopedalum from Vietnam. The flower is in its last days but still has a remarkable presence above netted leaves.

This plant is in full bloom, a lot of flowers in one pot.  A close-up follows this photo.

This little dendrobium was hiding in the very back of the greenhouse with the cool masdevallias. It is a dendrobium,  in a 3″ pot, it’s my favorite of all the plants I have seen this trip. If we had a cool enough place to grow it we would have taken it. It was picked up by a couple that spoke with a German(?) accent.

Joe talking with some of the other visitors.

Our friend  Ron arrived as we were finishing up looking and buying plants.

A couple of visitors found this bulbifilum growing in a fern root basket on a high shelf.  This is another favorite.

I was in the city for my Materials and Properties class today. It had begun to snow before I took the ferry across the harbor in the morning. By the time class was over it had been snowing a fine wet powder for several hours. The streets weren’t bad, just a little slushy near the crosswalks and on parts of the sidewalks where fewer people walked.

The calm snow storm made the ferry ride home magical, we sailed into a fog of fine snow, all the horizons disappeared, like we were floating in limbo. Back on land, driving home in the dim light, everything was beautiful. Snow had outlined every branch and surface. I stepped outside to take some photos on Tysen Street before the wind could tear through the snow, delicately piled on every branch and wire.

Tysen Street  from  Fillmore.

Our house from the street.

The back yard.

After I came inside with the camera, Jack our UPS guy, delivered a package, he left these prints on our steps.

A couple photos of the light snow in the back yard. And one of Henry wanting to be outside too.

I’m glad nothing is piling up. It was very pretty this morning as we went to the Y. The snow had outlined branches, half covered berries still on trees and it highlighted evergreen leaves showing all their different shapes and textures.

We were watching the late local news, something I usually refer to as the local mayhem and we saw that there was snow falling in Chelsea. I thought that it had looked a little strange outside from the bathroom window but didn’t investigate until I saw the news. Here are some shots of the front and one of the deck. Not much, but it probably won’t be on the ground when we wake tomorrow morning.

We woke up this morning and as I looked out the bathroom window I was surprised that the weathermen had predicted correctly this late in winter. We had been told it would snow before but we got sun and unseasonably warm days. This is the first major pile-up this year.  I took these photos in the front and back yards before I shoveled the walkways.  It’s light snow, easy to move but a little sticky,  it’s supposed to turn to sleet and ice later today,  then it will be really difficult to get around on foot. Here’s the front of our neighbors houses across Tysen Street.

And the back yard with part of the deck. You can see it’s about 8 inches deep on the table in the yard.