Now that the barn’s been painted, all the buildings on the farm are camouflaged against the snow. The cold is a fierce hunter. One has to take every precaution. Continue reading “Snophistry”
White Christmas
Nothing is more innocent than snow.
It says: I am not of your world.
We wonder: What child is this,
what wool, what milk?
Then we look back & see our footprints
multiplying behind us.
Maybe this is nothing but a white flag.
But whose turn is it to surrender?
New snow falls & fills the footprints in.
We feel we are being measured for immaculate shoes.
Holiday wilderness
November isn’t a month one typically associates with abundant sunshine; not many Thanksgivings have been as sunny as this one was. Since we weren’t celebrating until the next day, I was free to wander around and enjoy the great silence that settled over the mountain as all the roads emptied of traffic. By mid-afternoon, all one could hear were bird calls and the dried weeds rattling in the wind…
Continue reading “Holiday wilderness”
Autumn in a new light
My continuing effort to see fall foliage with fresh eyes started right under my writing table window this morning. I love the way each fern frond turns color and curls at its own speed. (Click here for a closer view.)
Continue reading “Autumn in a new light”
Autumnal
Rachel’s visit has been, as usual, much too short. On our last full day together, we drove around the Seven Mountains region of central Pennsylvania in the Rothrock State Forest, ending up at Alan Seeger Natural Area.
Continue reading “Autumnal”
Unknitting
I have company on my porch these days. Knitting is happening,
Continue reading “Unknitting”
How dogs see the wilderness
(Just back from a week in the Adirondacks. More soon.)
Leaves on a scanner
Self-portrait with new blue socks
Yes, it’s cool enough here for wool socks (and today, long underwear).
This is my favorite self-portrait to date, I think. The blues make me happy. “ASUS” is one letter away from “ASS,” which I often am. It shows my front porch at mid-morning, which is where and when I feel most at home in the universe. And I like the comic inversion here and the suggestion of asinine ears. The only way this could’ve been improved, I think, would’ve been if I’d thought to take my shirt off and use a compact digital camera, as if this were a “sexting” shot.
The photo was both planned and unplanned. Rachel had asked me several weeks ago for front-porch photos of both pairs of socks she’s knitted for me so far. (The other and far more glorious pair can be seen on Flickr.) The light conditions yesterday morning were perfect, and since I was wearing the blue socks already, I was inspired to grab the camera and snap some pictures. But then I set the camera down and picked up the laptop… You can imagine the rest. Curiously, when I went to upload the photos to my laptop for processing, I discovered that the initial two or three shots of just my feet in the blue socks were missing, I’m not sure how or why. So I was forced to take seriously a photo I’d shot as a joke, on a whim.
Pitcher plant heaven
(August 18) I’ve decided to remove the original introduction to this post to try and hide the location of the bog from plant thieves. My apologies for those who didn’t get a chance to read it before the re-write.
Continue reading “Pitcher plant heaven”