The Dance

I’ve been watching the wind course through the trees on our property. There’s only half the usual leaves left on the trees at this point; the hard frost we got a couple nights back forced many to give up on their high purchase and descend to cover anything underneath the canopy – our neighbour’s Toyota Corolla was painted yellow with wet maple leaves.  Any remaining leaves will surely be influenced to journey down by the Alberta clipper coming through southern Ontario tonight. The clipper’s approach is what’s causing the trees to dance.

Marq de Villiers, in his book about wind (Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather), talks about wind being the most disturbing (detested?) of the elements (apparently, science backs this up but I can’t recall the particulars). I must be an exception to that because I like the wind. I pursue it during the summer months and love the lyrical sway it is imparting to the crown of our maples in the fall.

These winds will pick up over the next twenty-four hours and we’ll probably get our first measurable snowfall of the season. Winds, unfettered across the open reach of Lake Huron, will pick up moisture and push it inland as snow. Much of that snow won’t reach this far inland (it’s over 150 kilometres from here to the eastern shores of the lake) but it may. The wind can be fickle at times.

The leafless deciduous are carving short arcs with their branches but some of the taller coniferous over on the next street are really sashaying. This clipper is going to be a good way to usher in the month of November.