outside of Cabin 2 looking up at Pole Mountain
Work on the remodel is almost complete. This is the part of projects I most enjoy. The finish work. Fine tuning. The little touches. Details. Trim. Completion. Finally we step back and say, “That looks good!” We will conclude this job, clean up, move the tools, and get going on the next project.
How quickly time passes. I remember when it seemed to go so slow.
I step outside the cabin at the end of the work day. The sun is low. It is time to feed. I will head over to the corrals to put hay and grain out for the eagerly waiting horses. With light remaining a little longer each day, feeding time comes later as well. The horses do not necessarily approve. The temperature was twenty below zero this morning, and this afternoon they ran through three feet of snow, kicking up the rooster tails of soft white behind them. This does not feel like a change of season for them yet.
I look up at the mountain, Pole Mountain, our back yard, our muse. I recognize the shadows. These are the same shadows I see in October. Only now the mountain is softened by white rather than the last golden glow of aspen leaves and dried grasses. I count, and yes, we are now of equal distance to the solstice, from the solstice as we are then. The light, the shadows, the sun is our clock, our calendar.
And at times, I wonder if time passes too quickly. Do I appreciate it all? Or does it pass so swiftly I miss a thing or two? What a pity, when every little element matters.
and a little more snow is swallowed by the black waters of the Rio.
Today the sky was too blue. Too much of a good thing? Ah, all things in moderation. Even this blue? We make exceptions.
Robin shell blue. At times, the color appears unreal. If I painted it this way, would you believe it could really be so?
Robin. Where, pray tell, did those robins go, those who lit nearby in the last passing storm?
A nest from last year, a robin’s nest, I found fallen in the willows and filled with snow. It was a thing of beauty, to be looked at, admired, considered.
And it all meshes together under the bright blue sky.
The passing of time.
a nest in the snow