a January spring

Not too long ago, someone near and dear to me poked gentle fun at my incessant photos of breakfast. And so I considered this: might it be mildly annoying for a reader to open Ocean to the same old fruits and oatmeal so many days of the week? Month? Year? Perhaps even off-putting?

Let me explain why I do it.

Initially (meaning years ago) I though of it as an insurance aganst a day had had absolutely no other photo opportunities. Start early, get one under the belt, don't worry if there isn't anything else.





Then I noticed something: taking photos of a breakfast table is hard! Even if you eat colorful fruits, it doesn't matter! Arranging a still life out of your morning repast is no easy task.

And so it became a challenge: can I try and try again to frame something that is actually a photo I can find satisfactory? If I try daily, will it open my eyes to new ways of viewing these essentially beautiful breakfast foods, shapes and colors?






So I keep trying. And I have to admit, I love a slightly protracted breakfast and so a moment for photos is not time that takes us away from something more important.


In other news -- we had the beginning of a two day warm spell. I remembered how grand spring is here, because it felt like spring today. Isis, finding the picnic table free of snow at last, stretched and clawed at it and in general, let it be known that this is his kind of day!










We were finally able to get to the stored carrots, too.  (They are wintered over in the space above the water well.) We wondered if they'd be frozen and awful.





No, they are fine, so fine! (Most of them anyway.)

In the evening, the happy married couple came for the postponed meal...


 


... and I made pumpkin shrimp curry (thanks to Tory Miller, our award winning chef, who shared this recipe!) and for a minute it felt like Sunday.






But it wasn't Sunday. They left, I returned to work. Late, late into the night.

Still, spring poked her head in briefly today (back to single digits by Wednesday) and I found her to be enchanting. Can't wait 'til the real thing.