Sunday Stroll - Winter Hats

Everything is glistening as the sun peeks out from behind the clouds that float in a surprisingly blue sky. I say "surprisingly" because it has been so long seen I've seen so much blue in the sky. When I started out, the only tracks on the pristine new-fallen snow were from the deer, whose early morning foray led them from their resting places, tucked away in the shrubs that grow in the marshy southeast corner of our land, to the compost pile in the sleeping vegetable garden, then down to our neighbor's corn field.

It looked as if everything in the world pulled on a winter hat this morning. The dried flower heads of buddleia (butterfly bush) have on sparkly caps, and the tiny everygreen in the butterfly garden has on both a snow-cap and shawl. Every stump or overturned bucket has a snow-hat on.

The creek is still and silent today. Only the little pool where the creek leaves our neighbor-to-the-north's property and spills into ours gives a clue that water sometimes runs here.

By the end of my walk my own tracks, like that of the deers, coursed down the hill and along the indivisible garden trail.

Standing at the end of the driveway, I looked out at the horizon where a far-peninsula cradles the other side of the bay. All around, near and far, snow had fallen on snow, as Christina Rosetti wrote. But I did not find the mid-winter bleak; I found it quiet, serene and familiar.