Let It Sand

When stellar dust particles collide with molecules of gas, those molecules are knocked into others, subsequently creating wind that reaches light year proportions.  If you want to view stellar dust in action, view a nebula for a few million years or so to see the bumper car reaction. These winds carrying stardust move from 20 - 2,000 km/s and are a continuous emission from stars made not only of dust, but of metals, the ingredients for new stars; thus new solar systems.

These stellar winds are either visible or seen only through ultraviolet light; you've seen them at work in the constellation Orion, in nebula M42.  Look to the middle "star" in Orion's sword, if it looks fuzzy, that's because of the gases and dust being blown around within the nebula.  There are about 2,000 stars inside, spreading across 20 light years.  Go get binoculars.

So then, there is dust being carried about the welkin of the celestial sphere by wind; eventually it piles up and forms stars.  Here on the planet. we have snow which piles up into great, arced drifts also shaped by wind, often burying the car if not the house.  Each flake forms around a particle of dust or pollen and when it has enough weight, descends to earth, carried by wind.  The temperature determines what type of flake forms and how it lands, in the world of snowflake chemistry.

Last week this area received the first snowfall, enough to bring out the plows to salt and clear the city streets; it had been raining, and as the nighttime temperature dropped, the groundwater became ice, slick and near invisible.  Over that came the snow in a steady flurry, just enough to coat the cars and grass; I could hear the joy in every child's heartbeat as it arrived.

I live next to a raised highway that has to be heavily salted, and so for the first time this year, the sound of a plow carving through the slush rattled under the orange glow of the old sodium vapor streetlights.  It was a familiar, unwanted noise that reminded me another year had passed.  Goodbye summer, goodbye late fall, goodbye the last of the homegrown tomatoes at the Farmer's Market.  Hello, winter squash.

Then it came to me via a friend who knows that plows were out also to the west of my own lake, plowing sand.  Sand?  Snowplows plow sand?   I had never thought of it, but if you live near a substantial beach, wind blows sand across roadways, up driveways, and buries the sidewalks.  When the winter winds rise from the southwest across this other lake, dunes will form in your front yard; one of the local signs of spring are the "Free Sand" advertisements that residents hopefully post, optimistic that others will come and claim a truckload.  The thing is, any blizzard will not only drive snow halfway up your door, but sand as well.  So, what does that portend?

You can take the kids out and build a snowsandman, pack a darn heavy sandball that will knock out a neighbor, and build a fort that will take mortar shells.  I imagine many a garage holds a Bobcat Front Loader for deeper mounds; while hand shoveling smaller drifts calls for strong coffee, a stronger back, and sympathy afterwards.  This area has the largest tract of freshwater dunes in the world, created by glacial movement; living by these clear waters is more than worth dealing with the inconvenience.

Years ago, when living across on the other side of the lake in a large city, I lived two blocks away from the shore.  No sand blew in onto the streets, for much of what was there is anchored by the most colorful array of smooth pebbles that I was always stuffing into my pockets.  Granite, quartz, gneiss, greenstone, and feldspar found their way home with me, and I still have many which I use for balancing stone towers.

Tonight, as I drove along a far road,  the full moon was pink; a blushed, golden pink  like a luminous shell glistening wet from salt water ablution as it climbed the great circle of the meridian.  Hanging over the fields filled with old goldenrod stems, now brown with their stalky, skeletal spines, this disk was a liquid, radiant counterpoint to the scumbled wildflowers.  Funny to think that the lunar surface is bleaker than the last few stems of a hibernating field, yet upon solar illumination, appears incandescent.
I felt lucky to see it rise, an illusion of depth making it appear larger .  It isn't, you know; measure it sometime, and you will find it is the same size at moonrise as it is at zenith; it's only the nearness to the horizon that makes it seem large.

Sleep well, it is a quiet night without storm or wind, and a low cover of clouds hides the stars, the progeny of nebulae, the makers of star dust.  Dream of where you came from, that the iron which sluices through your veins was once carried by stellar winds.  Earth, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are part as well, and spin through space around their human offspring.  Let the planets intermingle orbit, cross paths, and speed on; they will mark the ticking of time as you let go of day and visit the soothing night, you piece of starlight.