Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Finding the right images, DESCRIPTION

On one writer listservs I belong on, a member who had always lived in warmer areas wanted to know about the different sounds snow on the ground make as you move through it and how various animals react to snow for some scenes in his novel.

He was smart to ask because the right visual details make a scene live, the wrong details ruin a scene.

Always ask if you don't have the experience to breath life into a certain kind of scene.

I've included my answer to the writer below. I'm an animal person so I described how various animals in my life have dealt with snow.

Cats are fun to watch in snow. In the morning after a snow, my cat will go outside very tentatively. Cats think of snow as water so you can imagine their distaste in treading through the soft new snow. If the snow is over his paws, he will bound through the snow even when he could walk through it easily. Snow collects on his stomach hair in little balls. He normally does his business then comes right in.

After the snow has frozen on top, usually overnight, he will walk on the top crust in virgin snow, or bound in tracks made by me the day before. Normally, he'll hunt then, but if the crust starts breaking under his weight, and that nasty snow is on him, he heads back in for a snack and a snooze.

A dog will tread through soft snow that is below the halfway point in his legs, but will bound like a bunny in anything higher. Snow sticks on the legs and in the pads and that is uncomfortable if their human doesn't clean them off occasionally. Water dogs such as retrievers adore snow, and catching and eating soft snowballs is enormously entertaining.

Horses tend to stride through snow unless it is high drifts, then they plunge and bound. They aren't naturally rhythmic like dogs and cats. They look more like they are going flat foot over hurdles than jumping forward like a cat or dog.

I don't know if it's a major problems with unshod horses, but shod horses have a terrible time with snow build up in their hooves. Wet snow cakes in their hooves, and it builds up so they end up walking on snow stilts. This is extremely dangerous for the horse. I remember cleaning out up to six inches in my horse's hooves.

I've read that horsemen in England would press butter into the hollow area in the bottom of the hoof to keep snow from building up during hunts and steeplechases, but I never attempted that with my horse.

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