Ithacaview.com

Fall does a lot more than bring cool relief to those of us fed up with steaming hot days. You burnout surfers out there are thinking that as a northeast newbie I’m going to go on and on about amazing fall color. I won’t, well not a lot anyway. It is beautiful but it goes so quickly. One windy day and poof! away goes the facade. My amazement should die with the leaves (especially since I had to rake them all up with the "help" of a 4 year old - see pic) cute pile killer but it doesn’t. Everything is suddenly exposed. And when I say everything, I mean "everything".

The privacy of our house has disappeared. The uncovered windows that gave such beautiful views of a private verdant landscape now feel like fishbowl glass. I plainly see the neighbor’s old trailer that used to be well-shrouded behind his house. I see into windows of houses on another street as plainly as if they were next-door neighbors. Junk wood piles, rusty machinery, a power sub-station besiege me on almost every side. If I had seen these things in the summer when we bought the house, would I have signed the papers so fast?

I would have because along with the detritus are remarkable gems. Surprise birds’ nests occupy trees adjacent to our house and punctuate the bare treescape. What was once the dark mass of South Hill where Ithaca College sits as a crown seems on fire from late color trees by day and newly exposed streetlights by night. Birds and squirrels can no longer hide in the canopy and the larger deer creep closer to find food near the house.

A bit of snow is due this week, not unusual for the area, but another adventure for us. It is as yet another turning point. Much of what has been exposed will vanish again. Snow-laden nests will slowly disintegrate from the trees and junk piles will become simple mounds of snow. New, colder, discoveries will emerge. What they are, I can only imagine.

Important Definitions for the Winter Illiterate (like me)
Flurry: A period of light snow with little sweeping or shoveling required. Could be accompanied by the occasional screams of surprised motorists.
Freezing rain: Rain that freezes on impact with a sufficiently cold surface. This can cover trees in a uniform layer of very clear, shiny ice – a beautiful phenomenon (unless you own a car, are camping, or need to get to work), though excessive accumulation can break tree limbs and utility lines, causing utility failures and a rise in insurance premiums.
Lake-effect snow: Produced when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the lake’s shores. Best viewed from inside a lake-front summer home with single-pane windows and no heat.

more at Wikipedia…