My camera took this photo today and I absolutely love it. I don’t know, it just feels like my digital equivalent of a Rothko or something.
I think it may have been a close-up of one of these blackberry leaves:
Yes, it was our first snowfall of the year. We got three more inches around dusk. Sleep-deprived as I was, it was wonderful to amble around the mountain watching winter lay down its first blank page.
One thing to be said for all that blankness: my photo files are smaller! Fewer leaves mean less data—in more ways than one, of course.
Winter days are strange in how quickly the magic can come and go. You have to be ready. The power went out midday when I was a mile and a half from the houses, watching the first flakes sift down through bare branches. Power cuts are common but there’s only one first snow of the season so I took my time getting back. Just as I was about to hook up jumper cables to Mom’s ailing generator, she hollered that the lights were on.
So back out I went, after making some hot chocolate and putting it in a thermos to have up in the memorial grove. Delightful to watch it snow from under the spruces. It was Dad who taught me how to make cocoa—one of his few culinary specialties apart from blueberry buckwheat buttermilk pancakes and soft-boiled eggs.
And then another slow wander through another portion of the forest. I justified part of it as walking the property line, a good thing to do during deer season. I only saw one set of deer prints, but that’s to be expected. They’re laying up. What kind of idiot goes out in a snowstorm?
