one moment

Here's to finding comfort and inspiration in moments of beauty,

however fleeting or unfocused.

~~~~~

night lights

It's very icy here. We had an entire day of freezing rain yesterday, falling on the existing snowpack. I drove slowly to the feed store this morning, stopped for a quick look at two bucks on the way home, took Piper for a very brief walk in the woods, then came home with plans to Stay Put. More snow is predicted tonight and tomorrow, and it's very pleasant to think of the stockpile of hay, the crockpot full of soup, the supply of good dry stovewood, and just...being Home.

When I was doing the barn chores tonight, the moon briefly peeped out from amongst the branches of tall trees, and I took a quick picture:

After the third trip to fill goat water buckets, I decided to spend ten minutes doing something just for the joy it might bring:

Fairy lights strung between the workshop and the barn, visible from the porch. I am a simple person in many ways, and my thorough enjoyment of tiny colored lights is a very good example of this.

And in the parlor, yet another form of light:

I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so...good night!

~~~~~

snowy snaps

There have been several dustings and a couple of real snowstorms in the past two weeks, and it was snowing heavily at bedtime last night. I was awoken in the wee hours by the town snowplow: backing up (beep!-beep!-beep!-beep! shrieks the safety back-up warning), then scraping forward thirty feet, and then backing up again (beep!-beep!-beep!-beep!-beep!) on the road right across the bottom of my driveway. Several times. This is a new technique. What could it mean? I'm hopeful that the driver was creating a long spot for the school bus to pull over, and that a side benefit will be easy access to my letterbox.

Piper is very sad when she cannot collect her mail.

At the moment it's still dark outside, so I thought I'd share a few snowy images taken recently. I like to get outside when the sky is light but overcast, to enjoy the softer shades of Winter.

My eyes are extremely light-sensitive (when we did studies of white objects in art class, I had to wear sunglasses in the basement studio), so I really enjoy the feeling of being able to "dive into" colors without squinting.

The clarity of strong lateral light is also irresistible at this time of year:

And the fleeting dazzle!

The day is beginning, and it's time for me to do something about breakfast and opening doors, say Moxie and Della. The sky is a uniform dark grey; we may be in for more snow today. Piper and I will have to investigate the letterbox situation soon.

Here's hoping we all have a "special delivery" today :)

~~~~~

and we're back

Della knitting a sock. Excellent form for a novice!

The laptop was delivered tonight. I was watching for the Fedex truck and skated out with a flashlight to meet the driver walking up the driveway before he could hit the icy spots. Don't want anyone dropping the laptop!

So far, I've only uploaded the 742 images on my camera (which shows considerable restraint, doesn't it?) and now I'm going to sleep. But I'll be catching up on blog-reading in the next few days, and will write and post some snaps soon.

I've missed you!

~~~~~

brief very

I dropped my laptop a few days ago. Internetting through a cellphone the actual size of a credit card is...interesting. May not be much blog activity til laptop is repaired or replaced, but this (from tiny phone w terrible camera capability) is an experiment.