Yesterday was all about noise. The temperatures came up to a balmy -10 (plus wind chill, but I’m trying not to focus on that, except for the calculation of frostbite risk) and I only went out a few times, and not for long. I can stand the cold if it’s still, but the wind drives the cold right into me and gives me earaches, even with hat (and hood.) I did hike to the gate and see if the road was still there.

It is. It only seems like there nobody left but me. The warmer temperatures made it possible for all sorts of things to happen. For starters, the deer were out in force. I guess they had largely hunkered down in the extreme cold, something that only proves to me that the know what they’re doing out here. I’d be sitting in the house writing or knitting and hear the sound of branches, then look up and see them looking right back. They’re bold as brass as long as you don’t go outside. Around dinner I was making a salad and two of them watched me rather intently through the window, I could almost imagine their conversation. “Dude, is that greenfood? Where did that small human get the greenfood? She looks warm in there. Can we get warm? Can we get the greenfood?” I was sort of nervous about opening the door after that, since I thought that their lack of opposable thumbs and therefore, the ability to turn doorknobs, left them with only the solution of rushing the door when I opened it.

Knitting in the early afternoon, sorry.. knitting what? Oh. Right. Knitting blog. Forgive me. Knitting on a pair of socks in the afternoon,

you’ve seen these before, sort of. I had them started and got all the way to the heel when I realized accepted that the yarn, for which I’d misplaced the label, wasn’t actually STR in Lightweight, but STR in mediumweight. Knit at my standard gauge for socks, which is pretty firm to begin with, in this heavier yarn they were practically foot armour. They have been yanked back, and are now being knit on larger needles (My Grafton Fiber ones. I love these.) with fewer stitches. Much better. I have no idea why it took a half a sock to deal with it. I knew it was wrong and I just kept on going. Depressing lack of intellect. In any case, my poor intellect and i were knitting on those socks, and suddenly there was a huge crash. Then another… it went on and on, and it was so sudden and loud that it scared the wits of me. I ran from window to window, it was (remember, poor intellect) several frightened minutes before I actually saw what was happening. The house had been bedecked with massive icicles.

(These were taken the first day, before these big icicles got massive)

When the sun and higher temps warmed up the metal roof, all of them came crashing off, very nearly simultaneously. I can’t tell you what went through my head before I figure it out, but it involved deer on the roof.

It took me a while to settle down after that, but settle I did, (scotch would have been faster than tea, but I didn’t have any) and shortly after I’d gotten a grip back on myself, there was an earthquake. Or a bomb, or Something with a capital S. Out of the blue, there was an enormous CRACK-SMASH. It was just one of the biggest noises ever. It literally shook the ground and rattled the windows. It was all I could do not to throw myself under the desk. I may have screamed. I’ve been a little on edge anyway, and this noise was so massive that I lost it. I looked out the window, thinking that….well. I don’t know what I thought I would do, actually, the noise was so big that I can’t imagine that whatever made it would be something i could defend myself from.

Off to the side, at the edge of the river was sort of a rising column of snow or mist or something. Tree fall? Ice Crack? The ice makes some pretty trippy noises, and icecrack can be crazy loud, but I’m going to go with tree fall.

Scared me half to death. I tried to hike down there later, but the deer were uninterested and hadn’t blazed a trail for me, so I remained curious.

The whole day went on like that. The wind made noise, the trees made noise, deer made noise. Branches fell, the ice growled… an enormous fight was waged by crows in the tree by the door. it was a crazy amount of noise, a super loud day. By the nighttime, I had just about gotten used to it, and as I was knitting (I swear I’m writing. I think I just only hear stuff while I’m knitting.) I suddenly realized that things had changed again.

There was no noise. None. I went to the door and went out, and I understood straightaway.

Snow. Snow was falling all around me, and whatever noise the world around me was inclined to make was wholly muffled by the snow. I tipped my head back and watched it swirl out of the darkness.

Then I went inside. It may have been beautiful, but it was #$ª%^^£¢∞§**ing cold out there.