Pikas are the Tibetan Plateau’s most numerous mammals.
The pictured individual was still alive, just…
Had he/she been healthy, this rodent would have been snug, underground, rather than quivering, outside, as snow fell, circa 4600 metres/15,000 feet above sea level.
(photo copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 4.40 pm, 10 October 2019, on slopes above the Er La Pass, Qinghai, China. The nearby truck stop/hamlet of Wenquan is one of the world’s highest permanent settlements)
—
Cold Rain and Snow (aka Rain and Snow) is a much-loved American folk song of the “high lonesome” kind.
As is true of most such American songs, it probably has British ancestors (although not everyone believes so) but it is now unmistakably American, even when covered by British musicians.
Always plaintive, the song has many variants.
Some are a “murder ballad”, possibly based on an actual murder.
Others are merely melancholic, or ambiguous.
People still argue about whether the song is misogynistic, or not.
Some believe its “original” author was quite probably a woman, and argue that the song is compassionate rather than misogynistic.
Many women have sung it.
Click here to discover more.
Click this to discover a lot more, and see/hear many more videos.
(but be warned: the “Part 1” seems to have vanished from cyberspace)
This post’s concert video was not immaculately recorded, but it captures a superb 2005 performance by Peter Rowan, Tony Rice (guitar), Bryn Davies (bass) and mandolinist Sharon Gilchrist.
This is the studio version: