Snow Day #14726

The Story

It snowed a foot deep over a night and a day, and after the storm went over there was a beautiful sunny day the following morning. It’s actually rare to have good beautiful sunlight immediately after a snowstorm. Therefore, getting out to photograph was important.

Snow changes everything about the usual worlds around us and the familiar becomes freshly different, so I rambled out into the country in a wide radius to find some of those changed things. I took the roles of a seeker and looker. There were plenty of beautiful but empty photographic miles that I still enjoyed immensely. I knew a few nuggets could be found out there somewhere on a special day like this and I revisited some known places for a fresh perspective in snow.

This church sits far back at the end of a long scenic farming valley with a winding narrow two-lane road running through it. The place lies near the T intersection with a cross-valley road at a place known as Arch Spring. It’s been a rural crossroads for a very long time and a convenient place for the farming families to gather on Sundays.

This Presbyterian church was founded in 1760. The churchyard cemetery has soldiers from every American war buried there, including the Revolution. The current brick building is obviously newer than that but has a long history behind it as well; it’s very likely the first building used here for Sunday service was a log cabin built by the local farmers.

Today this beautiful brick and native stone church stands like artwork amongst the farms in their farmland, a rural jewel. A steady companion and long-term neighbor has been this very tall and very old walnut tree, which is as graceful and balanced as the church. The tree stands beautifully draped in snow on the many curving limbs. These two landmarks have been on a courtship since the Civil War era and as slowly as things change in the farming backcountry, that’s likely to continue for a long time further.

Location: rural Blair County near Arch Spring, Pennsylvania.