Bring it on

Vegetation can cause snow-melting heat.

— Photo by Wing-Chi Poon

“Recent research has demonstrated that the {January} thaw is a reality and most frequently occurs between Jan. 20 and Jan. 26….Though the thaw does not come every year, it has put in an appearance often enough to establish its place as a singular factor of the New England climate.’’

-- From “The New England Weather Book’’ (1976), by David Ludlum and the editors of Blair & Ketchum’s Country Journal (RIP)

“ There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter. One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues.

—- Hal Borland (1900-1978), American nature writer. He spent most of his adult life living in Salisbury, Conn.

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“My sense of time seems to be melting, like a kid's snowman in a January thaw.’’

— Stephen King (born 1947), Maine-based novelist

1908 postcard

Salisbury, Conn., in the Litchfield Hills, has long been a favorite weekend refuge.

What July is

“July is hot afternoons and sultry nights and mornings when it’s joy just to be alive. July is a picnic and a red canoe and a sunburned neck and a softball game and ice tinkling in a tall glass. July is a blind date with summer. ‘‘    

— Hal Borland (1900-77), American writer and naturalist and long-time resident of Salisbury, Conn., in the foothills of the Berkshires, which he often wrote about.

— Photo by Mary Kane

Purple prose about red foliage

“For anyone who lives in the oak-and-maple area of New England, there is a perennial temptation to plunge into a purple sea of adjectives about October.’’

— Hal Borland (1900-1978), nature writer

Seeds of hope

"There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter.  One is the January thaw.  The other is the seed catalogues."

-- Hal Borland