Part II 

A figure in the window,

made me move closer,

 somehow,
I felt as if I were
looking at myself,

The wind stirred
the dried leaves,

sending them swirling
all around




turning them into
tiny bright lights....

Images from the weekend.

One morning I recognized a bird call that hasn't been heard all winter and

I looked up to see this handsome fellow. Click to hear his song.

brewers blackbird

Such a sleek, sturdy bird they are, and in the light they wear 

the colors of a rainbow.

 Spring

 She appears, and we are once more children

we commence again our course with the new year.

Let the maiden no more return, and men will become poets for very grief. 

No sooner has winter left us time to regret her smiles,

 than we yield to the advances of poetic frenzy. 

"The flowers look kindly at us from the beds with their child eyes, 

and in the horizon the snow of the far mountains dissolves into light vapor."

- GOETHE, Torciuato Tasso.




Today is the first day this year that I was able to open all the windows of the house.
It felt good to mix the inside air with the outside  and to hang sheets to dry
for the nights sleeping.


I have opened my Etsy shop! You can click on the icon at the top of the left side bar, or here. I hope to add more soon.

Images from the Weekend

March

      Winter hangs on longer here.

Not ready to yield to the tune that softly plays in other places, she firmly grasps her freezing nights and her sudden snow cover in the morning. The blustery wind is a  

reminder to keep a warm jacket close.

So for now, we wait..

The seedling may not be ready to emerge, but I see its eye lids flutter



and I hear in the bird song, a promise,
a slight change of notes that alters the tune and says

yes, a change is in the air. 

and soon, very soon the windows will stay open and the warm coats
 will be put away.

Images of  February,  2011

The crows put on quite a show for us yesterday.

Gathering in the tree branches, watching, waiting.

Sleek black feathers against white snow.

An apt description of the weather around the Rock River Valleycold has stopped the clock ...Thoreau's Journal: 7-Feb-1855

An apt description of the weather around the Rock River Valleycold has stopped the clock ...Thoreau's Journal: 7-Feb-1855

The coldest night for a long, long time was last. Sheets froze stiff about the faces. Cat mewed to have the door opened, but was at first disinclined to go out. When she came in at nine she smelt of meadow-hay. We all took her up and smelled of her, it was so fragrant. Had cuddled in some barn. People dreaded to go to bed. The ground cracked in the night as if a powder-mill had blown up, and the timbers of the house also. My pail of water was frozen in the morning so that I could not break it. Must leave many buttons unbuttoned, owing to numb fingers. Iron was like fire in the hands. Thermometer at about 7:30 A.M. gone into the bulb, -19 degrees at least. The cold has stopped the clock. Every bearded man in the street is a graybeard. Bread, meat, milk, cheese, etc., etc., all frozen. See the inside of your cellar door all covered and sparkling with frost like Golconda. Pity the poor who have not a large wood-pile. The latches are white with frost, and every nail-head in entries, etc., has a white cap. The chopper hesitates to go to the woods. Yet I see S.W.—stumping past, three quarters of a mile for his morning dram.

You can read more here.

As the last day of January comes to its end, it would be a mistake to think that

Mother Winter will release her white world
any time soon.

Walking with Misha

Misha loves to run.

As soon as she is let off  leash she will run

around and around and around me ,

sometimes up to five times or more with out stopping.

 Once all the excess energy and pure joy of running fast is
finished it is time to check out the surroundings

Beautiful colors of Winter.

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.  ~John Muir, 1913