Long Hollow

The window beside me frames a winter scene I never expected to see – gentle white flakes floating down from a gray sky, frosting the tops of the cedars and oaks.  The little creek cuts across a white landscape. The waterfall seems energized, excited by the rare snow, just as I am.

The waterfall is more visible from the house today, I think because the branches and brush that usually obscure our view have been weighted down with snow. This morning I lost my bearings on my walk with Max (Frankie stayed home) - the branches had leaned low as if in an embrace, or perhaps cowering from the cold, in essence erasing sections of the narrow trail.

I wouldn't have gone on the walk, but Max insisted.  For more shelter, we walked along a narrow path near the creek and pond. It was so quiet, just the scrunch-scrunch of my footsteps in frozen, slushy mud and the sleet peppering my umbrella. I thought it was rain until I noticed sparkles on Max's coat. I reached out my gloved hand, gathering ice pellets on my upturned palm. 

I wished for my camera to get shots of the mist rising from the ponds, the snow resting on piles of firewood and nooks of trees, the globs bunched on the bowed branches like snowy fruit, but I had left it at home, not wanting to risk getting it wet.

Back home I grabbed an old towel and rubbed the sleet pellets out of Max's coat and got ready for work, but I never made it there. Snow started falling right after our walk – real snow…huge flakes that stuck and piled up three inches before I headed out the door - and my little car couldn't make it up the hill at the end of our road.

Except for the missed paycheck, I can't say I'm sorry I have a free day at home to get caught up on a few things. It would take a full week or more to get caught up on everything, but I should be able to scratch a couple of things off of my list and still get some good writing time in on my book.

But I've been mesmerized by the scene outside my window today…slushy rain…sleet…huge flakes falling hard…and these small unhurried ones dancing their way down.  It has been a little winter sampler just for us…a seasonal Grand Finale. By tomorrow afternoon, it will be all gone…but thanks to the zillion photographs I've taken from my car and the porch, not forgotten.