Waters Hard Like Stone

From whose womb did the ice come forth,
and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?
The waters become hard like stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen. Job 38:29-30

I was out at six o'clock this morning dealing with the gift that keeps on giving from the Clarington snowploughs, as well as several centimetres of the white fluffy stuff that God had sprinkled like parmesan on my driveway and sidewalk.

It is tempting to make snow the villain, especially if one must commute and dig and scrape before getting on the road.

At the risk of getting hate-mail, it can be beautiful. Last Friday our younger daughter convinced us to come to Brighton to pick her up because she had a ride that far from Kingston. We decided to go together, later in the afternoon and I suggested we put our skis in the back of the station wagon, just in case. We went into Presquille Park, found someone else's tracks and had a lovely ski back into the woods for about 45 minutes. It was getting dark as we emerged from the trees but the days are getting longer! We stopped at one point on our ski to negotiate our way around a fallen tree and in the quiet heard a woodpecker on steroids. It was a Pileated woodpecker, a species the size of a crow. We just stood and watched as it worked its way into a tree looking for grub.

On Monday afternoon I went to Second Marsh, although it was so cold I wasn't sure this was a good idea. I put on several layers of clothing and was just fine. The shore of Lake Ontario was amazing. A metre and a half to two metres of ice had built up along what is normally a sand and gravel beach. It is now a lengthy, glistening cliff with deep fissures. At places holes had been pushed up through the ice and miniature geysers erupt when the larger waves hit shore. It was the first time I had seen this sort of formation along the lake.

The bible has more than two dozen references to ice and snow despite the hot climate in which its stories are set. Maybe it isn't so bad after all? Just asking.