Saturday, February 2, 2019

The Saturday Snapshot #25




     I don't think I took any photographs during the astoundingly cold pair of days we had midweek. It was just ... too ... cold. I'd have to take my gloves off. Madness. In fact, Wednesday and Thursday, I left the house six times: to walk the dog. Otherwise, the cold seemed in my bones, and I sprawled around the house, too tired to even read.
     But reader Nikki D. stepped into the gap, snapping this Wednesday, noting:
     I took this today during the polar vortex cold, and it's an unaltered photo. This is the view of my side yard, our neighbors are there in the background. It seemed as though it was too cold for colors, almost like I stepped into a film noir.  
     "Too cold for colors"—I like that. Poetic. That could be the title of a children's book, something starting in the black and white winter, with perhaps a trace of bluish snow, then bursting into floral yellows and reds and purples come spring—Friday morning certainly felt springlike, a balmy 7 degrees...
      Scale is hard to tell in this photo, at least for me. Is the tree small, a crab-apple perhaps? It looks that way, at first glance. Or is it large? It seems to grow if you compare it to what seems like a brick outdoor stove nearby.
      Anyway, I don't want to overthink this one today. Thanks to Nikki for sending it in, and I encourage other readers to get off their cans and share a shot or two of their own. It's a game anyone can play. 

10 comments:

  1. That looks a helluva lot like DeKalb County, where I lived in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and endured a few "Artic smeks" like the one we just lived through. In my days out on the edge of the prairie, the mercury never got as low as 25 below zero, but what's six or seven degrees when it's that frigid?

    Much of that gray-white "too cold for color" effect comes from fine particles of blowing snow. The intense cold turns the top layer of deep snow cover to powder--and the never-ending wind does the rest. The wind is fierce out there in the wintertime...hence the minus-56 wind chill DeKalb Airport recorded on Wednesday morning, the lowest anywhere in Illinois this past week, and even lower than many of the numbing figures reported in southern Minnesota, where I've seen the same kind of "non-color" on several occasions.

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  2. I'm old.hiw would one seen picture to your "blog site"?

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    1. You can send a picture as an email attachment. Email Neil at this address: dailysteinberg@gmail.com

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  3. A film noir is right. Reminds me of the Coen brothers' movie Fargo.

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  4. Looks absolutely desolate, until you spot what looks to me like irrigation machinery. Seems like Nikki lives next to a farm. But I assumed less rural suburbia at first and thought the outdoor grill to be a garbage can.

    john


    You won't catch me taking pictures outdoors in 30 below weather. Besides, I think Dr. Johnson said something to the effect that only a blockhead would take photographs for free.

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  5. I took some photos of the entrance maze at Jerry's Fruit Market in Niles on Wednesday. There wasn't anyone else there!
    I sent them to a couple of people who go there when it's normally a packed zoo.
    Did a lot of shopping on Wed., it was great, the stores were empty & you parked up close to the entrances without a problem.

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  6. "If winter comes, can spring be far behind." 'Ode to the West Wind.'

    Dr. Johnson, of course, didn't have a digital camera built into his I phone.

    Tom

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  7. Thank you for posting my photo. The tree is a lilac that's pretty tall for what it is but smaller than other trees in the yard, so I placed the toddler bench and chimanera there to make it seem bigger, bit of an ego boost for the tree I guess. We do live on a farm, those are corn fields all around, but a proper farmer works the land in SW MI, not DeKalb Co.

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  8. Don't know much about farming...hell, I don't know anything at all. City and suburbs all my life. But I do know that DeKalb County supposedly has some of the best corn-producing soil in the Midwest, if not the whole country. Deep and rich and good for very high yields per acre when it comes to seed corn. Also one of the most humid places in the Midwest, because those countless square miles of corn crop give off so much moisture in July and August. And the prevailing winds blow much of that humid air to the east, right into Chicago and its suburbs.

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    1. My knowledge was pretty limited, but you do learn a lot being up close to the process. Glacial activity made the soil here pretty loaded with fieldstone, so I traipse around after the fields get turned over and gather all I want for garden borders. I've also lucked out and found a good number of stone and flint tools, all from just field walking. It's pretty fun I have to say.

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