Snow

I am up in frozen New York state where the nightime temps are routinely dropping below zero. Though the days lately have been sunny, they've been COLD ... at least to this southern girl.  8 degrees and breezy just makes me want to huddle up next to the woodstove, which I've been doing a lot of, with book or knitting needles in hand, when not holding a baby, playing with a four year, old, cooking, doing laundry, or ... well, you know.  There's always something to do around here, but quiet time is a sweet afternoon routine and the evenings when everyone else had settled into bed are times for reading.

I did venture out last Friday with my friend, Mary, however, on a lovely, long winter walk in the woods.  We were "tracking" - trying to identify the many tracks we saw on the backwoods road, that is rather like a highway for the woodland creatures - coyote, skunk, fisher, deer, mole, vole, mouse, and even bobcat. That's right.  We followed the bobcat tracks along a fallen tree and saw where he jumped to an adjacent fallen tree, along its length and off and down along the edge of the cliff, presumably into one of the caves along the cliff face.

Meanwhile, down south, a bit of snow fell yesterday and last night.  Schools were closed, bread and milk disappeared from grocery shelves, and children tried to sled on scant snow cover.  A friend of mine wrote a poem:

...

But beneath my responsible patina,
is a child with fingers crossed under mittens,
alert to the sky
to catch the first flake shaken
from our dreams.

Read the rest at Missy's place