SEASONSCAPE

About SEASONSCAPE

Late November in northwest Ohio announces itself plainly: the fields go from stubble to bare, the grain elevator stands up dark against a sky that has run out of color, and one afternoon the first real flakes come slanting across the highway. SEASONSCAPE keeps a list for that afternoon — the Ottawa township drives, lots and walks that need to be open by morning, in the order they will be needed. Plowing and clearing through the storm, hand work at the doors and steps, salt down where the melt will refreeze after dark. Winter here is less a single event than a long arrangement between a property and the weather, kept up storm by storm from the first inch to the last thaw in March. By spring the lists close, the salt bags get stacked away, and the ground remembers nothing of it.