Christie Mastric

One of the most challenging parts of living in January in the Upper Peninsula is visualizing every outdoor scene as a winter wonderland. It’s a decent way to adapt to a harsh climate.

Sometimes it’s easy. Other times, not as much.

If every winter setting were like the painting depicted on my Art Calendar 2022 for January — with art reproduced from originals painted by artists using their mouths and feet — cold weather in U.P. would be more bearable.

The painting of two people standing in a path looking at snow-covered trees fills me with a sense of peace. Titled “Winter Walk” and painted by the late Paige Crouch, it appears the path already was cleared — a big bonus — and it wasn’t too difficult to walk under the white canopy.

You could almost hear harps in the background.

Several factors make such snow-covered trees appealing. One is the lack of wind. I don’t want to walk in a forest and worry about a heavy snow-laden branch, or even just a bit of snow, falling on my head.

On a windless day or evening, the snow that stays on the trees ideally is in clumps, or spread out on branches in a powdery sort of way. Sometimes the conditions allow for branches to be covered in ice, which although is beautiful can be dangerous. I mean, a branch can hold up only so much precipitation, especially of the solid variety.

Winter wonderlands, however, often are fictional. Think of Ralphie Parker, hero of “A Christmas Story,” waking up on Christmas Day and looking out the window. It made northwest Indiana look grand. I also recall having a hologram book about “The Snow Queen” where the iciness was sort of appealing. Of course, holograms are just cool anyway.

Unfortunately, the winter scenes outside my window aren’t always as visually pleasing. Often the sky is gray, trees are bare, our yard is unplowed and car crud discolors the snow.

And that’s if I see through the window frost. On the other hand, frost can made some pretty dynamic patterns. As an icy Rorschach test, I can see either a bat, a swan or an angel, depending on my outlook on life that day.

One of the recent frost landscapes on our kitchen window resembled tall conifers. However, ice on a window probably involves the need for some preventative maintenance.

Even interesting ice patterns can be problematic.

Back in the day, snowy days were fun. As a kid, you could make a fort that might last a day or so before someone knocked it down, or go sledding or tobogganing. I wasn’t much for snowball fights; making a snow sculpture was more my thing.

Notice I said snow sculpture, not snowman. I am woke.

The problem with making said sculpture was that the snow had to be just right; too flaky and it would fall apart. Also, you had to live with the fact that sometime in the not-too-distant future, it would melt. The lyrics to “Frosty the Snowman” still make me sad, even though Frosty said he would be back again some day…thumpety thump thump.

If not, I hope there’s a snow sculpture heaven.

Being an adult in a winter wonderland has its drawbacks, one of which is I have to drive in snow. This I don’t always enjoy, especially on M-553 headed to and from Gwinn. At night when the flakes are falling, it’s like driving through lightspeed in “Star Wars.”

I’m not Han Solo. I’m a 62-year-old woman navigating a potentially dangerous stretch of highway in a car with over 158,000 miles on it, with few motorists behind me seeming to take notice of the treachery.

I just let them pass.

Scraping car windshields also is not high on my list of fun things to do, no matter how interesting the ice pattern. When ice gets on the inside of the windshield, that is even less fun, and I can’t really explain that phenomenon other to say there probably is moisture leaking somewhere.

Wanting a winter wonderland and getting one often are two different things. I suppose I will just have to find the wonder where I can.

Perhaps I can start making snow forts again.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Christie Mastric is a staff writer at The Mining Journal. Contact her at cbleck@miningjournal.net.