Another winter wind storm is over

And the Silence is Loud and Welcome. After six days of harsh Valley winds, life seems so gentle and quiet now. We were battered and pummeled but peace is upon us for awhile. Sometimes it seems like wind storms are so personal….finding the small, tender spots that hurt the most. It’s as if humans and animals are reduced to small insignificant objects, bound to be blown about and dismissed as pieces of trash. This past wind event had the volume turned up. Terrifying noises partnered with the tenacity of velocity. It sounded like heavy duty airplane traffic right outside one’s window. Or maybe it was loud monsters in the dark?

Palmer Socials Had it Right—There are many, many local observations about the recent wind storm. So many of the Palmer postings on the Palmer Alaska Buzz Facebook page are both accurate and very creative. Regarding the wind storm, here are a handful of community answers offering both insight and humor: “My vehicle only gets 3 dollars of gas because that is how long I can handle standing in the wind. My grocery list took flight in the parking lot. The house shook but not because of an earthquake. Never open more than one door of your vehicle at a time because your entire car will be accidentally cleaned out. When you open a vehicle door, be careful of the directional velocity, or it will take your leg off. Fresh rumpled hairdos happen naturally during wind storms. My animals are in a bad mood and offended by this wind. I am afraid the front fence will come through the living room window. Hoping we don’t lose a small student at a bus stop in this wind. Park the nose of your car into the wind. Keep your hands at 10 and 3 while driving and lean right.”

Wind’s Aftermath — Once again the Palmer and Valley are picking up after the severe wind storm. The dramatic landscape presents the full force force of last week’s wind. Now is the time of retrieval and exchange…the time to locate lost items….trash bins, lids, chairs, Christmas decorations, water bowls. Everything less than a pound weight became trajectories. Tarps (which were very secure) broke loose sending the many bungee cord connections hurling into space, as if the Rapture was calling them to escape life on earth. Shingles, trash, postal mail, and uncovered autumn leaves litter the streets and wind scoured flat lands. The huge piles of snow are pitted and shredded and covered with glacial silt. Everything seems disfigured and shredded. People are using brooms, chisels, spades and hammers to hack away at the icy piles.

Speaking of Silt—All of the grey matter that is covering the snow is a product of the glaciers and the wind. It is ugly and depressing. But it is also valuable. This grey, gritty, glacial gift is the mineralized miracle that makes the valley soils so fertile. Years and years of deposits (thank you wind storms) have created the rich soil.

Abundance of Glacial Dust Gift—It makes you lick your lips, not because it’s tasty. The powdery dusting resembles the salty residue of ocean spray. It’s grittiness is everywhere—on your windowsills, clothes, in your eyes, on your face. It is a natural and inexpensive exfoliation treatment. The silty dusty abrasion feels like sandblasting. Glacial dust is often called Alaska’s smog. It’s hard to think of it as beneficial. The hazy layer of silt lays everywhere in every crevice and every crack. It arrives generously in Palmer yearly—in the form of fresh loess deposits, building up in some areas and nearly creating new real estate. Loess is a high nutrient contributor for building some of our richest topsoil, as it annually is dumped in the valley. In fact glacial rock dust is very marketable as a garden supplement. It contains organic trace minerals which benefit soils and health. Plus it is a colorizer! The rich blues and green colors of some of our lakes are a result of glacial rock dust sediment, suspended in the water. Scientists say that the sediment scatters light which creates those colorful blues and green, seen after the spring thaw.

Barbara Hunt is both Palmer writer and artist. She works hard to keep the robust pulse of Palmer, Alaska. She shares the good stuff on the weekly Palmer Alaska Buzz in the Mat Su Valley Frontiersman and daily on the Palmer Alaska Buzz Facebook Group. Contact at bhunt@mtaonline.net or text 907.315.3222