Mighty nature or embattled nature?

Nature as entertainment and nature as a source of threat and fear are so close together that it is easily understandable how we humans oscillate between conquest and nurture. More accurately, just began adding nurture of nature to our repertoire.

So the announcement of a snowstorm of historical proportions  broadcast to us in the comfort of our warm office evokes nothing but incredulity (oh those weather people are hyping up a storm again) or, at best, curiosity. (Let’s see it, bring it on, it should bring welcome change to the uniformity of our daily life. ). So the wet flakes signaling the beginning of the weather event are just a disappointment. The then sticking snow on the way home after dark are just a minor challenge. Then it gets thicker but we have to go to sleep. I wake up at three at night remembering the forecast of three inches per hour and oversee the rather bright snowy scene outside my window.  The yard looks unfamiliar with all the bushes flattened and covered in a vast gooey white soft lined mass of snow. I lay back down, to continue my sleep under warm down feathers, alas, the mind begins to churn.

How about our roof, especially at the heavily leaning  chimney/fireplace in the dining area? What if all this extra load overstresses the diminished bearing area of the trusses? Then a new thoughts enters my brain, what about the electric wires, the telephone and cable wires? Aren’t they amidst trees and bushes who seem to be so laden out there? Aren’t they about to snap leaving us without phone and internet and at the mercy of our generator?
Already I am up and putting snowpants and boots over top of my night outfit. Traipse through the dark house. Just when I snap the rear sliding door lock open a blue flash illuminates the snowy landscape outside. Ahh, too late I think for a second associating the flash to a shortened power line before thunder sets in and lets me know that this is a blizzard with thunder and lightning, admittedly adding some spookyness to my nightly undertaking. Out there I see immediately that the trees and branches are indeed groaning under heavy loads. Snow is bearing down at a furious clip, wind howls and yes, I hear also breaking tree limbs, quite loud actually. I wonder if something would fall on me while my feet sink into snow way above my knee. I find the 10’ 2x4 and start knocking the branches above the lines. The snow comes down in big clouds spreading over my hood, face and hands which immediately feel quite cold while clamming down on the 2x4. I should have taken my gloves out, I realize. More cracking comes from the juniper whose main trunk had already broken under snowload in December. I wish it would stop snowing right now, but about 8 additional hours of heavy downpour had been forecast and the weathermen seem to have been dead on this time. Now the snow is not just entertainment anymore, it is a threat to my house, my trees and my inner peace. It has reached proportions that are quite outside my regular experience level. When I go back to bed, I am far from calm until the tiredness of the early hour finally wins over. In the daylight of my early morning rise the world looks less spooky, but the view of my front yard is surreal, indeed. Frantic shoveling is an attempt to create a sense of order in what appears utterly different under 30’ of snow or so. Even getting to Fernglen Way is a challenge now and it is completely unclear what a path to that unplowed former street would get me. Still, I cut my path through the snowscape as if my life depended on this very lifeline to be created by a shovel and my fatiguing arms.Human history, right here embodied in the small me fighting the mighty snow, the small human against mighty nature. That nature itself should be embattled by the collective of billions of humans seems like an unlikely option.Seven hours later when the snow stops falling, the sun comes out and the streets have seen heavy equipment the snow armageddon looks already much diminished and the winterlandscape outright scenic. The dangeously leaning 70' pine tree notwithstanding.