Today as we look out on Appalachian Mountain Country Snow Fairies dance in the sunlight. Touched by the sun's warmth they bounce, leap, flip and twirl as if in a Winter ballet performing just for we who are willing to rest awhile and view the world through their eyes.
A snowflake is a delicate yet intricate beauty. No two are alike in shape, form or how they may fall and alight on this precious Earth.
A snowflake begins in the atmosphere, first taking shape as ice
crystals in a cloud. As water freezes the drops go explode as pressure builds inside the
drop. As the coating of ice begins to freeze on the outside, the water shatters into many
fragment or "splinters". Each fragment becomes a seed for an ice crystal that
transforms into a beautifully intricate snowflake.
Extreme sensitivity to varying conditions of temperature and humidity gives snowflakes their different shapes and densities.
The sight of the delicate white flakes floating down from the cloud-ladened sky brings nostalgia and a certain flutter to our hearts. We find ourselves reminiscing of sled riding and tobogganing, rolling in the snow, catching snowflakes on our tongues, building forts or just lying in the snow face up.
Snow reflecting in the light takes on lavender-blue hues to grays to the kaleidoscopic jewels of the Universe.
Snow is nature's security blanket which benefits wild creatures, soil, water and plants.
Snow is protection for tiny plants and their roots as a moderator of temperatures beneath the soil.
Snow is insulation to the forest floor. Queen bumblebees, wholly bear caterpillars, wood frogs, spring peepers, red efts, crickets and countless other forms of hibernating wildlife depend upon the snow cover for life or death.
Snow conceals, hides and provides homes for mice, shrews, moles, and muskrats. It acts as ladders for rabbits to reach formerly unattainable bark and twigs and weighs tree bough down to within reach for browsing.
And snow can be just for fun.
As we watch the otter, we see this wilderness clown driven into a frenzy when snow covers the ground. He hurls himself across the massed flakes on his chest like a sleek, brown toboggan. He plunges out of sight and emerges several yards away in a puff of snowflakes snorting and chirping.
And the otter really knows that the Snow Fairies danced down from heaven just for our own joy and somehow we know they did too.
Copyright © 1988-2000 Barbara A. Smith and John G. Hipps. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published January 4, 1989 in the Free-Press Courier, Westfield, Pennsylvania.