Odd snow

[altivo]

Snowing on and off all day, not a lot of accumulation, but after dusk it changed from sleet pellets and little hair-like rods into a form I've seen only rarely. Rather than the usual hexagonal crystals with many-branched arms, we started getting little flakes of crystal, transparent and flat with irregular edges, like shards of very fine glass. They vary in size from a sixteenth to an eighth of an inch or more, The notable thing is that, like glass, they catch light and refract it. Lying in heaps on the ground they look like broken glass. Falling through the air in front of car headlights, they look like glitter, sparkling quite brilliantly. Unusually beautiful, and fragile. I'm sure they won't survive the night in most places. Of course the roads were still slippery and the wind has picked up and is making the earlier powdery snow drift across roads too.

Two new displays up in the library, both interesting I think. One is in honor of Edgar Allen Poe's 200th birthday (Jan. 19) and includes a pair of ghostly hands holding a copy of The Tell-Tale Heart as well as the mandatory white bust with a raven perched on top of it. Our most artistic staff member put it together with antiques interspersed with the books.

The other is our kick-off for the library's centennial year (founded in 1909) and consists of the ten best selling books in the US from that year. We went to used booksellers to get copies that are actually that old, and they look quite nice with the elaborate embossed covers and occasional color plate embedded in the binding. I'm actually looking forward to reading a couple of them, including The Silver Horde by Rex Beach, set in Alaska presumably during the gold rushes and featuring a fashionable woman and a dog team on the cover. Beach wasn't Jack London, exactly, but he was a commercial success and must be readable.

Comments

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

A leaky gutter on my house, dripping water onto the path outside my home has created such an icy patch. When I came home on Tuesday night it was particularly bad. I thought to myself that if I did not take action to stop passers by (it's a public footpath) slipping on it, I would be sued for "failing in my duty of care to the public" or something like that. So I threw some rock salt down.

I mentioned it in passing at work, and it just so happens that the corporate legal guy was listening in. He informed that far from facing prosecution for "failing in my duty of care to the public" by failing to grit; the fact I had taken the time to grit a public path automatically makes ME responsible for that. Thusly if anyone DID slip after I put salt down, I would be prosecuted for failing to do the job properly. Whereas if I had not bothered at all, nothing would have happened as the path is not my responsibility. The lesson I learned form that? It's just not worth giving a damn about anyone in this day and age.

Either way, sadly we get none of the fun of the cold (snow), just the danger that goes with it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've heard that theory before, and some court decisions in the US have held that view. However, others would still blame you because it was your leaky gutter that created the icy patch. Go not to the lawyers for advice, for they will tell you both yes and no.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

In other words: "it depends on what mood the prosecutor is in on the day." Wonderful! I really must get that gutter fixed.