Friday, January 02, 2009

Expanding My Vocabulary

I learned a new word browsing the blogosphere  today. It's "sastrugi", which means "A snowfield covered with sastrugi can look like the top of a lemon meringue pie, or like a desert sandscape, sculpted by wind into curvaceous dunes. The word comes from the Russian zastrugi, meanining a small ridge or furrow in the snow." So check out the sastrugi on the hood of my car as I left work on New Year's Eve... Oh yea, that's what I'm talkin' bout! Now where are my skis?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa, I love it! Thanks for educating us snowless southerners too. :-)

Happy new year!

Frances

troutbirder said...

Wow! We got those sasturgi's all over around here. And I unknowingly have been destroying them by blowing them off my driveway. I am truly insensitive. Shame on me.

lisa said...

Frances-Thank you! Happy New Year to you as well! :)

Troutbirder-Heh...well they ARE rather pretty, eh? *~<];-)

Anonymous said...

Lisa,

Hope you had a Happy New Year

lisa said...

Thank you...I did. Hope yours was Happy, too! :)

CommonWeeder said...

Lisa, Great sastrugi on that car. I love learning new words, and the book Home Ground has lots of fascinating landscape terms.

M. said...

I love your blog! I linked to it because I became concerned about using carpet to smother weeds in my garden, so I googled it, and you'd posted it as an idea. I had an old piece of carpet that I was going to have to add to the landfill (which just goes against everything I am trying to do!) and a friend told me about this idea, so I tried it. But now, I am worried that the toxins in the carpet might be leeching into the ground! Any ideas?

lisa said...

CommonWeeder-Thank you! I'll have to check that book out.

M-Thank you! I have used carpet in the past, but I'm not sure about toxins. I've used cardboard before too, it's not as permanent, but works really well for a season and sometimes as many as three.

M. said...

Thanks for sending all of the great links! I have decided to pull up the carpet this weekend (I was going to wait until the spring, but the guy from England with all the facts convinced me sooner rather than later). The possibility that it is leaching toxins that will be absorbed back up through the plants and into our food is enough to make me think twice about carpet.

lisa said...

You're welcome! I wish it weren't a concern, and possibly carpeting that's all wool or cotton rugs would be fine. I don't blame you for being careful.

Monica the Garden Faerie said...

So you're thinking of using your car as a ski jump? ;-) I never heard of that word before, either, thanks!
~ Monica

Unknown said...

Yay! You've got to love fancy names for snow drifts, huh? I haven't seen many of those since I moved up to the northwoods. I suppose there are too many trees around here to allow for the wind to build them up.

lisa said...

Monica-Heh, with my knees, the car is the biggest slope I can handle about now! :)

Cinj-Yea, the wind whips across the parking lot at work pretty hard. I saw that you have quite a bit on the ground at your place, though...fun stuff, eh?

Unknown said...

You resisted the urge to climb onto the top of the car and slide down?! How???? lol. :)

lisa said...

LOL!! Since self-discipline is so NOT my forte'....it was hard! ;-)