winter light

Today, the first of the Days of Longer Light, I carried a stepladder from tree to tree in the snow, and arranged a string of fairy lights between house and workshop.

There have been mixed results in the past with having fairy lights outside. Strings have suddenly stopped working for unknown reasons. One triggered a GFCI and stopped power to the barn. And, bizarrely, some strings of lights have been cut into sections and taken away by a squirrel. What a squirrel wanted with bits of wire and tiny multicolored bulbs I do not know. If it took them to light up it's own nest, I imagine it was very disappointed.

Speaking of which, when I opened the box of lights today I was thrilled to discover that, not only had each individual string been neatly tied, but I had apparently found the strength within myself last Spring to discard all the strings which were not likely to work. I plan to recall this personal success story in future when I dither about whether to keep or discard something that doesn't quite work but could possibly be fixed. Not saying I'll always take the discard route, but I will at least think about how nice it was to plug in each string and have it light up.

Although this is a single string of lights, it swags between trees and crosses my path to the barn in a couple of places. As a result, when night fell, I realized it looks a bit more dramatic than I anticipated. It's colorful and pretty but it's also "a lot" in my quiet landscape.

I told the goats to enjoy it tonight because tomorrow I will probably take it down and do something different - exactly what, I do not know. My barns would look like little gingerbread houses if I outlined them with lights, but I have no intention of getting out an extension ladder for this project. It was quite enough using a stepladder for the trees today.

What's amazing to me is that all these lights were on the tree last year,
and it was perfect. Interesting, isn't it?

~~~~~