Nemo 2013: Pictures of a Blizzard & A Bird

Two feet plus this morning. Windows rattling from the snowy breezes. And, look! Snow drifts on our windowsills.

I went out to shovel. (My condo-mates did most of the work, though.)  Snowflakes are light and still accumulating. 

Sidewalk is clear, but street has not yet been plowed. Those are my bootsteps. Fluffy stuff.

Walked a few blocks to the main street 

On the way back home saw a bird fly across this street. A robin!

 This is where it found shelter, inside a burlap-wrapped bush. Smart.

Another dozen robins flew out into the trees.  Here’s one that lingered (pic below). Can you see the orange peeping out of the snow-covered branches?  You have to look hard. The bird is center/left in the photo. Wishing I had some bird seed in my pocket. Will get some when stores reopen.

Here's today's revelation.

When I first saw that bird flying across the road on snowy currents, I knew this storm would soon be ending.  I remembered how the Greeks looked to birds for harbingers of weather and events and the future. I used to think bird-reading was really humans projecting their needs, desires and hopes. I don't think it's just that anymore. I believe birds are expressions of a larger intelligence, a universal knowledge. They are part of our intrinsic, organic perception of what we can't see or sense directly or reach with our usual tactile probing. I understood how much we need birds. We humans would be lost, the loneliest of wanderers, without them. 

Birds are supremely resourceful.  I guess humans can be, too.

A neighbor is X-country skiing down our small street