holiday

When I had picked up Snowdrop at school on Friday, I told her she had before her a three day weekend.
There's no school on Monday, I said.
I know, she replied. Martin Luther King!
Surprised to hear her on this, I asked what she had learned at school about this forthcoming Martin Luther King Jr Day.
She piped up without hesitation -- banks are closed!

Perhaps this was volunteered by one of the kids in class. I don't know that Snowdrop fully knows what a bank is. In any case, I pressed on and did learn that my explanation of the man pretty much did match what she had learned about him in school. I added one additional fact and it turned out to be as significant as all the rest, because yesterday, at the dinner table, she turned to my daughter and said:
Mommy, did you know that Gaga was actually alive when Martin Luther King lived??



Ed and I wake up late today. We'd been working with software snafus in the wee hours of the night, so sprinting out of bed at daybreak would have been painful. Thank goodness that this isn't our usual busy Monday. Not only are we tired, but, too, it's really cold. -11F (-24C) at dawn. These are the Wisconsin winter days where you want to say "thank you" to your furnace every time it comes on to heat your comfy living space.

The cheepers huddle, Stop Sign catches bits of sunshine to keep herself warm.






Did I mention that at least this morning, we have streams of lovely sunshine?






Breakfast, in the south facing front room.





In the afternoon, the kids and their mom come over for a visit. I'm trying out my new camera and liking it quite a lot. It hasn't the price tag nor the bulk of an SLR and importantly, it does a pretty good job at tracking a moving subject even in lower light situations. In other words, it is a much improved small-ish camera over the Sony I had "loved" for so many years. Ed says -- it's not small, it's kind of large. He's right, it's bigger than my (currently malfunctioning) Sony but it is still a compact little thing in my eyes. So far, I am a fan. May it be my friend for a long long time!

(Snowdrop wants to perform fairy magic...)






(And Sparrow? Not unhappy!)






(Oh, that young child's dance! So full of heart!)






Happiness is...






... a pile of Sophie and Mercy books!





When the farmhouse grows quiet, I return to my camera work. I've read that quite a few people leave their beloved brands (Nikon, Cannon, in my case  -- Sony) to take on Fuji and for most of us, it's a huge shift. Fuji does things just that much differently. Not understanding the reasons behind the madness is foolish. Why spend precious (retirement!) resources on something you don't fully know how to use?

So I read. And in the quiet of the winter evening, I take small breaks and pauses and I remind myself about why pictures matter. Why stories, told visually or with the help of words are important.

I don't often read poetry, but  I do have a favorite writer - someone whose poems are as sublime as the best photo you'll ever see of a landscape on a cold winter's day.  Mary Oliver. She died last week and an Ocean friend sent me the lines of one of her poems that I'll reprint here for you. That, followed by a poem about, well, the moon. Can you see how one theme weaves its way into the next? That's life, no? So much that falters, so many punches. And still, if we can find it in ourselves to look out at that moon, at the flowers that bend their faces to her light, well, then maybe we can pause, take a deep breath, eek out a smile and share it with those we love... 

Ocean

by Mary Oliver

I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is

always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.

Patience

by Mary Oliver

What is the good life now? Why,
look here, consider
the moon’s white crescent

rounding, slowly, over the half month to still another
perfect circle —

the shining eye
that lightens the hills,
that lays down the shadows

of the branches of the trees,
the summons the flowers
to open their sleepy faces and look up

into the heavens.
I used to hurry everywhere,
and leaped over the running creaks.

There wasn’t
time enough for all the wonderful things
I could think of to do

in a single day.  Patience
comes to the bones
before it takes root in the heart

as another good idea.
I say this
as I stand in the woods

and study the patterns
of the moon shadows,
or stroll down into the waters

that now, late summer, have also
caught the fever, and hardly move
from one eternity to another.

Mary Oliver was beloved by everyone except those who took pride in criticizing her uncomplicated verse. Those critics, they missed the point, didn't they? In simplicity lie the more complicated and profoundly beautiful truths. At least, that is my belief.

dazzled

It was one of those white winter nights: nearly a full moon against a cover of snow. You could read a book by its dazzling light!






Of course, it was bitter cold. And it remaines cold all day today. I may have been tempted to stay under a quilt for a long time, but Ed had a nibble on his Craigslist "for sale" posting and the guy was supposed to come over to look at said item, so rather reluctantly, I throw back the covers and go downstairs to fix breakfast. In sunshine!






What Ed had posted was actually a rerun of an ad he had run this past summer. There was only one interested taker then, but he never showed up, and eventually Ed forgot about the whole thing. Until yesterday. He reposted and boom! He has a taker.

How much do you want for it? -- this from a very happy Zach (the taker).
Actually, nothing. When you make stuff out of it, you can give us one of the items. A bowl, or a cheese board... That's Ed's response.

The item up for sale is a tree. Ed had cut down a couple of box elders last summer and noticed then that they had an unusual coloring to it. It struck him as artistically significant. Something a wood worker would appreciate. He had sawed the trees into logs large enough to work with, but small enough to haul onto a truck.

Zach was bedazzled by this find. He wanted to take at least some of the logs home right away and so the two of them set to work in 0F (-18C), to load the logs onto the truck.





Hey, at least it's sunny!





After several loads, Zach bails. I'll return for the rest another time! 
You sure? This from the big old guy who may sleep away good chunks of the day, but when put to the test -- has the stamina of a marathon man.

That sunshine -- it can push aside thoughts of how really cold it is. It lures you outside. Ed asks me -- do you want to go skiing? We glance at the thermometer (3F, or -16C) and he answers for me, for the both of us -- maybe it's too cold to fuss with skis.
I suggest a walk. He picks the Arboretum. We head out.






And in fact, you could fool yourself into thinking that it's not so bad! If you walk in the direction of the sun, you begin to feel energized and strong. Full of Vitamin D again!






We don't push it though. I'm just reemerging from couch hibernation.






And Ed? Well, you never know if he is emerging or just testing the waters of a new normal. For all the predictability in our day to day, my once occasional travel companion and now stay forever in the farmhouse guy is in some ways very unpredictable.


In the evening, the young family is here for dinner. Mom just got back from her trip, dad surely is happy to share the load. Forget the bugs, viruses, pesky winter aggravations! The kids are thriving. Life is so good.

(Mommy's lap!)






(my, what a funny chinny chin chin you have....)






(if you sit at a table together, all's good with this world...)






(Snowdrop will tell you so...)






Late. So late. Did you know that there was a Super Blood Moon eclipse tonight? It would be a good time to test a new camera. But it's cold! So very cold! Still, imagine, a moon so bright, so orange, so beautiful, moving into a crescent shape before your eyes!

I take a picture of it with my Fuji camera. I'm not even sure if I used the proper settings. The camera is new, the technology is unfamiliar. Indeed, Ed and I spend fifty hours trying to understand the software that would allow me to download the picture into my photo folder. At midnight, we are laughing too hard at the impossibility of this small task. No dazzling moon photo for you today. Who knows, maybe in a day, a month, a year, we will have figured it out!

P. S. Sometime after midnight, Ed and I have a breakthrough moment and finally, as if finally liberated, the photos from the new Fuji begin to download into my Lightroom photo work space. I go outside to try a new camera setting. By now, the moon is fully in the process of cycling through its eclipse. I could not possibly capture that bit of dazzling magic with my little lens, but I'll at least post this much -- a moon that a few minutes ago was brilliantly full, suddenly appearing as just a sliver of its former self. Click. Download. Crop. Post. Magic!





And now -- goodnight!

January days

In many ways, having a January birthday is a good thing: when winter seems long and holiday merriment has fizzled, you have this day that's all yours to look forward to! If you're Wisconsin's child, you probably have some story of horror to tell -- born on the slickest, coldest day ever! (That was my younger daughter's tale... until Snowdrop was born and then she had competition.) But, too, you are forever at the mercy of nature's grip. Today, for example, a snow storm continues to rage in Chicago where my daughter, the one with a birthday today, lives. You learn to shrug your shoulders and say -- see what I have to put up with? -- and then continue with your celebrations.

May your celebrations be joyful and grand, little girl of mine! And save some merriment for when I next see you in the windy city! (Soon!)

Here, at the farmette, the big snow all fell last night. It wasn't a monster snow, but enough for Ed to take out the power blower today. I shovel the little paths, he goes after the grand stuff, including the rather long driveway.

But before we start in on snow removal, I head out to the barn to check on the cheepers. They are, of course, all locked up still. And somewhat huddled. The imprint of losing one to a predator stays with the survivors for a while, we've learnt. Too, it's cold out there!

I fill their dishes, check on the water and then turn my attention to snow matters. (So pretty in the early morning light!)






I have an unusual day before me. First of all, Ed volunteers, on his own, to go to the clinic to check on his hearing (which has sort of disappeared in some significant fashion in the last few weeks). Now, you'd think this was a real about face for him: a visit to the clinic! But it isn't really. It's almost a preventive step to keep his hearing in tact. You go in, your ear gets examined, you leave with instructions. It tells you nothing abut the state of your health. (Which, again, is perfect, according to him.) I volunteer to drive him over and so after breakfast...






... we set out. It's a tricky juggling act, because I am also on my way to see Snowdrop (assuming, correctly, that Sparrow is napping). Their mom is out of town and I want to give the dad a break from watching the two kids round the clock for several days now.

(bath time, play time, and outdoor time -- we can fit it all!)
















As I tell her I have to go retrieve Ed, she asks if she can go to lunch with us. Where? The farmhouse! What? Pancakes! And why not....






Afterward, Ed rests, she and I continue to play.


 


It's good to spend this quiet time with her at the farmette. She is still not 100% out of the woods with a hovering bug and we can slow down and read (and read and read) when she shows signs of wearing out.

The sun is lovely... oh so good to have its splendid brightness in her play spaces!






In the late afternoon I drive Snowdrop home...


(hey! Sparrow is up! How are you, little guy? Happy? I'm not surprised!)


 



... and I think about how clever we, humans have been in creating warm spaces for ourselves in these coldest months. How resilient and forward looking. How nonchalant now in the face of raging storms and plummeting temperatures. I look around me and see nothing but pretty, nonthreatening winter landscapes. It really is a beautiful day, birthday, winter day, January 19th kind of day here in our wintry Upper Midwest!

(farmette at midday)

Friday rush

There is a sense of urgency. Funny, on a Friday people like to slow down. We can't: put away thoughts of a slower pace. Today we rush.

Last night, Ed and I decided to keep the cheepers locked up for a while. This isn't a new normal by any means, but for now, while the hawk is probably still lurking, I thought (and after a while I convinced Ed on this) we should contain them. It's not as if they get much benefit from the great outdoors in the dead of winter. The timing seemed good, too, weather-wise. There's a winter storm warning in effect and following the expected snow, temperatures will go down to significantly below freezing. In those conditions, the cheepers usually stay in the barn anyway. (And when they move outside, they move slowly -- that's not a good gait for birds under the gaze of a lurking hawk.)

But keeping them locked up in the current coop is, for us, unacceptable. The structure is too small. No wiggle room. A harsh reality after total freedom. We looked on line at the available supplies at Farm and Fleet and found an acceptable coop "addition." We haven't the time to putz around with building something ourselves (um, himself). But with some additional wiring, Ed can add this protected space for them, so that they'll stay out of each others feathers.

Even though we have no time. He has a work techie meeting. I'm basically useless in the construction department. And I have my knee doc. And groceries to get for the week ahead. And Snowdrop to pick up after school. So we have no time. And a snowstorm is scheduled to hit at 2 p.m.

And so we move fast this morning. No breakfast for Ed. A rushed one for me.





He's off then, promising to stop by to pick up the addition materials before the storm hits.

I'm off to the doc's. I need a confirmation of the knee injury. I get a confirmation. A meniscus tear. Will it un-tear? No it will not, but hey! They promise to get me to the place I was before the injury. The doc and his team seemed so... athletic, that I am convinced their word is solid.

At the grocery store, there is a crowd of shoppers anticipating a big snow. Long lines, full carts.

At the farmette again, I unload the food, Ed unloads the coop materials. When I join him in the barn, he is discouraged: who knew that the addition was only three sided? Ed will have to attach whatever wiring he has to plug up the hole.
The thing is too flimsy. He tells me. It's hawk proof, but is it racoon proof? In guarding against one danger, have we created a new one?
When the weather settles, Ed'll improve it. For now, he staples chicken wire and clamps the extension onto the coop just as the snow begins to fall.

And it is when snow begins to fall that I pick up a tired little girl.
 





A handful of kids in her class are out. She may be fighting a bug. Still, the lure of pretend is strong. She wants to play "swimming pool." A swimsuit is de rigeur. We reach some kind of a clothing compromise. In her swimsuit now, she watches the snow fall outside...


 



But tiredness hovers. I suppose over the both of us.






Toward evening, I cave and turn on an Olivia video for her. She melts into the couch. We both exhale.



The coop extension is up. May it give the girls some peaceful times together.






The snow falls.





The farmette is very, very quiet.

drama at the farmette

We linger in bed in the morning, reading whatever it is each of us reads upon waking up. Something seems off.
Hear that? I ask Ed.
Ummm... That's the equivalent of a no.
There it is again!

Squawking.
Cheepers, he comments.

It's true that the girls squawk. I mean, all kinds of stuff sets them off. I just laid an egg! Squawk squawk! I heard something! Squawk! And then there are all those squawks I can't possibly understand. What got into you? -- I'll ask, to no avail. Chickens don't have a habit of answering my questions.

But the noise this morning is persistent and it includes screeching that's not part of the usual chicken fare. I'm in the bathroom, peering out the window. The cheepers have been out of the coop for about half an hour. They're likely at the side of the farmhouse under their favorite set of bushes. And now all is suddenly quiet. Except for the rush of wings as a medium sized bird flies by the bathroom window.

Ed and I are out in a flash.

No sign of chickens.

We look around. And then Ed calls from the garage: there's a hawk here. He's small. No sign of the cheepers though.

Indeed. No sign of the cheepers anywhere.

We search. Ed retires to the house. It's cold outside. We're both underdressed. They'll show up, he says.

The thing about Ed is that he is one breath away from being part of the great animal kingdom. Sometimes I think he lives by their laws of nature rather than our own. One consequence is that he doesn't like to interfere in the order of things too much. Me, I want to intervene, to protect one, perhaps throwing another under the bus. Ed will go along with my very human and often emotional responses, but only so much.

I don't want to give up. I keep on searching.

Stop Sign shows up and I feed her, even as the small hawk, and it is small, and it is a hawk comes back. The bird seems uninterested in the cat and vice versa. I don't understand how these animal hierarchies work.

The hawk flies out of the garage again. All is quiet. I search.

I find feathers. Lots and lots of them. Black and white Pepper feathers. I call out to the cheepers and a tiny peep comes from a clearly frightened Tomato. She comes out from hiding, walking tentatively toward me. And Peach is in the hydrangea bushes, also uttering quiet peeps. The two girls huddle together, out of my reach. No sign of the other four.

I look everywhere. Everywhere!

Nothing but the two peeping huddled girls, heaps of black and white feathers, and Stop Sign.

Ed and I sit down to breakfast.





We're completely dumbfounded. Four girls gone? Were there more hawks? Do they hunt in packs? We google this. They do not. Could this one small hawk have laid ruin to our flock?

Would you get more chickens if we lost our four? -- I ask, more for reassurance: no, never again! I never want to raise cheeps, to lose them to predators!
Maybe... he answers. We need to talk this through.

I have an eye doctor's appointment. I get in the car. Twice I make the wrong turn. I am not thinking about where I am going.
The doc tells me she likes my sweater. I remember that two years ago, on my last appointment, the nurse told me she liked the same sweater. I am a rerun of previous encounters. We are all inconsequential. For Pete's sake, my chickens are gone.

Two hours later I am at the farmhouse again. Peach and Tomato are still huddled in the bushes. All quiet otherwise. I coax them out. They follow me, very very tentatively.

I pick up Tomato. She has always been the easiest to handle. Scrawny little girl, how did you survive?





Peach follows. I'm still in shock. We go to the barn, I put out some food. And out from the timbers of the old barn comes Henny! Good old always-terrified Henny! She must have flown to the barn in a mad dash of escape!

Three girls gather to peck on corn. Tentatively. As if asking -- should we be eating? Should we go on as before?

Ed is outside, then in the garage. He shouts out to me -- Nina! (It's bad when he calls me Nina.)

The hawk is back, working away at poor, long gone Cupcake in the rear. Sweet shy Cupcake: the only hen that kept on laying all winter long.
I need help here. This from Ed, who rarely needs help.

And as I approach the garage, out of nowhere (or out of that same garage?) comes Pepper! The girl who must have waged some battle! All those feathers looked to me so fatally conclusive!  I call to her, she comes to the barn.






I give them all more corn then return to Ed.

That hawk wont go away so long as he has Cupcake's remains to work on. I'll chase the bird away and we'll remove Cupcake. Hold a shovel in case the hawk attacks me. Be brave! 





In the end, the hawk didn't attack. He flew off when Ed approached him. We take Cupcake away, though of course, so many traces remain.

Traces of a girl who was so visible from afar, what with her brilliant white feathers. Traces of a girl who was best buds with the other two little ones.


Inside the farmhouse, Ed and I discuss the short run and the long haul. I want to lock the four cheepers in the coop, right away!
Just for 24 hours, until this monster bird goes away.
Don't you think he'll be back?

Which begs the harder question: do we let the chickens continue with their habits? Do we let them roam? Do we raise new ones and let those roam?

And did we really lose two today? Java, the old mama hen who doesn't quite move fast enough? Did she get carried away as well?

It's all so terribly hard to sort out. I tell Ed we should maybe raise them all in a chicken run, fenced from all sides, top and bottom too.
Then why have chickens? He asks. We're not keeping them for the eggs.

He's right. We eat the eggs, trade in the extras for cheese at the market, but we really aren't in it for egg production.
I don't want to raise locked up chickens that can't scratch and roam and play. They're our companions. They eat ticks, maybe. They are happy cheepers. I can only do it that way.
So you want to raise them to be snatched by predators?
Look, we've lost some, but not very many. Java and Henny are possibly older than four years. We've fended off hawks before. And, well, you know -- hawks look for meat to stay alive. I wont kill a hawk because he killed our chickens. Farmers may do that to protect their livelihood. We're not farmers.

Ah, nature! We watch a gazillion nature documentaries. We've looked on as predators dismember smaller animals to stay alive. We've acknowledged the struggle. Animals kill not randomly, not for pleasure, not because they're having a bad day. They kill to stay alive.

In the short run, we manage to corral the four girls into the coop. We lock them up for the day. I breathe a sigh of relief.
In the long run? I suppose we'll proceed as before.
Ed reminds me -- you know, the normal life of a chicken is very short: two months if they're raised for meat, at most a year if they're commercial layers. Our girls have far outlived that and they are content, happy girls who spend the summer months bringing up fat worms and taking dirt baths in the sun.

Still, we have a loss and one that occurred (and this is a first for us!) in bright daylight. And in the days ahead, we are facing a hawk who has scored a home run and who knows there's more to be had.



And Ed? How is the old guy doing? Well, he is like a swing that keeps on swinging. Today he is all gold and sunshine in his dazzling yellow shirt (see above). He takes one day at a time.


In the afternoon, I bring a tired Snowdrop home. Eat, read, recover.






How grand it is to see her lively form!






We play at being sneaky. She loves the concept!

Cookbooks, shopping for baby blankets, writing out math works -- we cover them all!





And eventually, the little girl goes home.


Night time. A light snow is falling. They say there will be more. I walk to the barn to make sure all is well with the locked up girls. And I throw the flashlight up the barn wall and would you believe it?! There is the old black girl, Java, halfway up the wall, by herself, a little nervous, a few feathers out of place, but as far as I can tell, just fine!

Where were you, big Java?!!  Ed!!!

Wednesday

Yawn! Sleepy eyes! I should nap.

It was a throw away night: Ed had a nightmare that lasted a very long time, or at least he kept returning to it and any remaining hours one would normally think of as sleep time were given over to wondering why Ed had a nightmare that lasted a very long time. Well, I wondered. He slept.

Yesterday's romantic excursion to pick up a new toilet seat seems like it belonged to another time. I'm learning that there is still a touch of unpredictability left in this bug battle that Ed is fighting (on his own, because, you know, he has to wage all wars on his own). Each day is an interesting new experience in what else can feel off kilter. This is my view of course. Ed thinks, nay, he is convinced that there is nothing wrong with him. I surely hope he is correct.

It's a pretty day today and I deeply appreciate the bit of sunshine added to the only mildly winter-ish temperatures (highs just below freezing). I see that we are in for a blast of cold air next week, but for now, threats of ice storms and messy roads have fizzled and we are once more enjoying the brightness of a calm, sun dappled day.






Breakfast. A bit of confusion as to when and with whom, but then, this month has a lot of such confusion to it.





A daylily catalogue shows up in the mail. Of course I mark favorites. But I do not order them. Yet. For the first time since moving to the farmette, I am wondering if flower bed expansion is always the wise strategy to follow here. Of course, I will eventually pick up some replacement flowers (if only because the cheepers do some damage in the beds and, too, my return rate on perennials isn't 100%: always some things get beaten down by our winter weather). But should I continue to push the borders of the beds? Should I bother to create a new bed out of the weeds that grow around the sheep shed, given that Ed so rarely spends time at the sheep shed anymore? I mean, who will see the flowers down there?

It comes down to this: what gardening goals do I have for the farmette lands?  I'm thinking about that right now.


In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop.






She and I are so on the same page today! I miss the freedom of a walk. Of being outside in good weather. She misses our neighborhood adventuring. Well why not head out today? It's just below freezing -- that's practically a heatwave for January! The air is calm, the sun is still with us.

We walk over to our old hangout cafe by the lesser lake. A snack energizes her.






She asks to go to the park playground. It's officially closed for winter and with good reason: the lake winds can come out of nowhere and they can be cruel. Still, everything seems so calm, so beautifully calm....

Sure, Snowdrop! Let's go!

Happiness is an unexpected half hour on a swing!






...Followed by a good old game of family on the play structure. I'm the kid, she is the mom. Of course.






Later, much later, the little one is back home and I start in on dinner at the farmhouse. Remember the pledge to up my repertoire in terms of comfort foods? It's time to take out the old yellow pot. It's a good night to make the "cozy cabbage and farro soup." Warm, so warm. Mmm....

Tuesday

New stuff: Ed doesn't like it, I try to steer clear of it. And if new stuff comes in (say at Christmas time), I make sure that some old stuff goes out. Always more going out than coming in.

That principle is so ingrained into our farmette life that I bolted upright in shock and disbelief when Ed said, twice in the course of this last day -- you need to replace this with a new one.

I need a new one??

I suppose this needs context: we're talking about cameras and toilet seats.

In the thirteen plus years we've been together, I have been a Sony camera person. I downgraded from an SLR to their mirrorless model (now running under the a6000 series) and every three or four years -- meaning when the warranty runs out -- I purchase the newer model. Because inevitably, things are not working properly.

It is true that I am a very heavy user: I carry my camera everywhere. Still, Ed has always offered his tsk tsk tsk each time I send camera after camera off for repairs. The fixes are free, because I purchase extended protection plans, but they're a hassle and the camera is out of circulation for several weeks. More importantly, I don't trust it to stay in good repair and so when I travel, I always have to take a lesser back up.

In Ed's view, I should drop Sony. If once or twice a year the camera fails, that tells him something about the design.

But I'm a Sony girl! Sony pushed through the wonderful smaller mirrorless models! Their cameras have given me years of happy shooting!

Still, when my now three year old camera broke down again yesterday, Ed said -- you really should consider getting a new non-Sony. (And I will do it: next one down the pike will be a Fuji.)

The other time he uttered the words -- let's get a new one! was far more prosaic: I have been complaining that the enamel on the toilet seat has been wearing down. This sounds so completely stupid and yet, it is the first thing that I notice when I enter the bathroom upstairs: gulp, some more enamel, gone!

Perhaps because he has been so useless in his post-holiday sickly state, Ed takes pity and says, in his most romantic voice -- let's go toilet seat shopping today! And we do just that. And on the way to the home supply store, we pass Walmart, where we pause to restock on our fizzy water and while passing the produce section, Ed asks -- would you like some flowers too? I turn him down, because, well, I'm fussy about bouquets, but still!! We are on an upswing here!

(All this of course happens after breakfast...)






In the afternoon, I bring home a tired little girl...






She needs what we all need: a time in midday to regroup, reconsider, to eat a little, rest a bit and then boom! The eyes brighten, the spark of energy comes back.







Off she goes into her Snowdrop world of make believe!






There is a bit of the unusual today, in that at the end of the day, I drop Snowdrop off downtown. It's rare that she finds herself at the Capitol Square after dark. And yes, she is excited by this twist of fate.






They say there will be sleet. That there will be icy patches and that temperatures will plummet. Well yes, it's January. I do wish though that we'd get a wee bit of snow. Just to lighten up the landscape somewhat. Each season has its best weather moment. We haven't had our winter one yet, but there is time. For better or worse, there's plenty of winter time left.