As I watched the large, steadily falling snowflakes coming down this Monday morning, I remembered the slim little book on my shelf called Snowflake Bentley. I hadn’t thought about this amazing volume for a long time, so I found it and settled in my chair and decided to leaf through it and look at the photographs. An hour later, I had skimmed through the whole book and renewed my appreciation of the man who spent his whole life studying and photographing snowflakes and the beauty of frost crystals on a windowpane and raindrops and dew.

Mr Bentley devised a manner of making “photomicrographs” to take pictures of his snowflakes. His collection of these snow crystal pictures eventually totaled 5,381. One of the oddest he ever took looked exactly like the face of a clock. No two were ever alike. There were scientific aspects of his work that were studied worldwide. He had great faith in God and had read in the Bible the words which spoke of the “treasures of the snow.” But his undying curiosity and his love of snow prodded him in his lifelong studies of snow and crystals formed from water.

This little book (mine is a slim paperback) cost $4.95 at the New England Press in Shelburne, Vermont. It would be a great gift for a student interested in science – in fact, for anyone who has ever marveled at the sight of a snowflake which has settled on their coat sleeve or a mitten. When you realize that Bentley never found two alike, and you think of the very incredible amount of patience his work took all of his lifetime, you can only feel a great respect and imagination for this Vermonter who left such a beautiful legacy.

My friend Joy Yates who lives in Minnesota sent me a clipping sent to her from a cousin in Texas. It is a sort of “now I’ve heard most everything” story. In England, the article states, a new hobby has surfaced – “train spotting.” This is an activity akin to the passion of bird watching as we know it.

The aim of this pastime, or hobby, is recording the number of every locomotive and entering it into a notebook. One of these “spotters,” Richard Trott of England, was interviewed by an Associate Press reporter who said he long ago began his search to find and record the identification of every such locomotive operating in England.

Such numbers are displayed on tags of every locomotive so a person can read them and record the number, where and when, for his book. Some even carry a laptop computer to list their finds. Some carry a video camera or a mobile phone, to help in their collecting. And it isn’t only trains being spotted, but also buses and airplanes out and about.

Some airports have a sign reading “No Spotters” to discourage people from hanging out at the grassy areas of smaller airports. Back in 1940, there were 20,000 locomotive numbers to collect. There are not that many today, but it could take a lifetime to collect them all.

Mr Trott told the reporter his hobby is a way to get him outdoors in the fresh air. He is retired now, but still hunting for any numbers he doesn’t have.

This Monday’s storm appears to mean business! Several inches have covered the formerly bare ground under the spruce tree. Birds are scratching and digging there, in hope of finding some seeds still there. Apparently the squirrels are content to settle into their leafy nests or shelters. They have not appeared at all today.

If I could be sure the robin that has been visiting under the tree every afternoon would come today, I’d throw out a handful of chopped raisins and a few pieces of apple peel. Up in Brookfield, my grandfather used to provide some soft raisins, cut in half, every afternoon on the back porch. If he was a bit late in tossing them out he would find the pet robin waiting patiently on the porch railing.

The words ending the column last week were by Thomas Jefferson.

Who said, “Lady, if you got to ask, you ain’t got it”?