Janus

Snow Rollers in the North Vineyard

A new year dawned in the vineyard with a bracing seasonal chill, with just enough flurries to flock the landscape.

Ever since, January hasn't been nearly so benign. The first week sent the meteorologists scrambling to the far recesses of their textbooks, to come up with a name for the sudden and drastic temperature dip. Suddenly "Polar Vortex" was on the tip of all of our tongues.

Aptly named winter storm Janus followed not long after, blanketing much of the country under substantial snow accumulation, as temperatures plunged yet again.

This week a second Vortex descended, and despite our overnight temperatures plunging to -14 degrees, a stroll through our acres of grapes reveals a world of startling beauty, with just a little bit of mystery.

Frigid January sun casts blue shadows on our thick blanket of crystal-flecked snow. It is remarkable how subtle shifts in light and temperature can alter the laws of optics. Snow that days ago seemed gray or blinding undifferentiated white, is today crystalline and sparkling, with blue shadows and highlights.

Trellis poles and Marquette vines cast blue shadows.

Our familiar vineyard denizens leave their usual tracks.

The fawn family transects the South Vineyard along their preferred route. Our Canada geese have departed, perhaps for warmer climes, but not before leaving behind a complicated choreography of webbed footprints in the snow. Mr. Muskrat seems to have roused himself from his lodgings beneath a particularly gnarled willow. Apparently he found conditions not to his liking, and circled back from whence he came, not even making it so far as the lake.

His cousin, Mr. Groundhog, has apparently yet to stir from his rocky warren beneath one of our Petite Pearl grapevines. His biggest day of the year is just days away, and apparently he is still sleeping off his autumn grape feast.

Other markings are more mysterious: various prints and traces that start and end abruptly, deep snow and high winds obscuring useful identifying shapes.

These snowy perambulations are not just a pleasant nature walk.

We are out gathering grape canes, a random sample from eight separate vineyard blocks spread across five acres. These we will take inside and cut open the dormant buds, to examine the effects of extreme cold on next year's crop. So far our very hardy varieties are faring well, but each new drastic temperature plunge sends us back out to gather more samples.

Stark contours of a pruned vine.

Along the North Vineyard, windswept terrain slopes down toward the lake, and here we encounter fantastical formations: snow rollers, formed by the unique weather patterns of the past few days.

It is eerie to suddenly encounter them, because everywhere else the snow is so even and still. But here unseen forces have rolled the snow up, into formations resembling millstones or Swiss rolls or magic winter carpets.

Our vineyard remote data logger tells us that Monday morning at 2:42 AM we recorded a balmy high of 38 degrees. Fourteen hours later, just before Tuesday's dawn, we recorded our low, -14 F.

Somewhere along the way, just enough ice formed a crust on top of the snow, so that any softer snow that blew across it did not stick, but continued to roll, rolling along with other soft particles until they adhered themselves into a formation, that subsequent lower temperatures froze into place.

Another unusual January occurrence in a most peculiar month.

Fantastical formations

The ancients named this month after Janus, a god with two faces, symbolizing beginnings and ends. He ruled over gates and doorways, passages, endings and time.

With just a few days left, what further surprises, and what little mysteries, might January bring to us yet?