Weekly Photo Challenge: Serenity
When I hear the word “serenity” all I can think is:
…Burn the land and boil the sea, You can’t take the sky from me…
Sadly, no matter how many times I sang that song, we were still a bit short of space cowboys this week. So, I settled for a picture of the orchard under a new coating of snow instead.
I was out walking the dogs on a bright sunny afternoon, enjoying the relative warmth after our recent cold snap, when I checked on the beehives. Even from a distance, I could tell that the ground around the hives was littered with dead bees and I smiled as I went to take a closer look.
I smiled, not because I’m the world’s meanest beekeeper, but because I know that dead bees on snow are a sign that the hives are still alive and well.
The bees, unable to fly out at all when it gets very cold, wait for warm winter days when they can take short flights outside as they clean out their hive. When the snow around the hive is littered with droppings and dead bees it may look like a massacre but it’s actually a very good sign.
Sure enough, when I looked a little closer, someone was looking back at me!
There is still a lot of winter left but I’m crossing my fingers and hoping to keep seeing dead bees on snow through the rest of it!
Digby says it’s cold today.
Cold enough to freeze drool.
Poor Digby.
Snow on the ground, freezing temperatures, clear skies and a full moon…
..nights don’t come any prettier.
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment that I froze my fingers to the bone to capture.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
We woke this morning to single digits and sun.
I step outside, eyes squinting, to find the world unwrapped from it’s veil of rain and clouds. Nothing but crisp lines and clear skies as far as the eye can see. What was recently soggy ground now crunches beneath my boots and the little ponds have frozen solid. Smooth, dark ice that captures the blue of the sky and reflects back a deeper hue than the one above.
The sun, sitting low in that field of blue, is lacking in warmth but making up for in light. Photographers talk of the golden hours, but now, as the year turns, we have golden days. Shadows are long, colors are rich and the dogs running through the fields are surrounded by a constant halo of light, backlit, even at midday.
Clouds from dogs’ breath trail behind them as if they were small steam engines and milkweed pods burst open as they fly past. Seeds lit golden by the sun are caught by the biting wind and swirl off out of sight.
As I walk, my cheeks stiffen from the wind and cold – a small price to pay for a morning out in single digits and sun.
It’s foggy, misty, rainy and muddy in that way where the damp and chill seeps right to your bones.
But inside the greenhouse the peas are blooming!
As I experiment and learn in the greenhouse I may not yet have figured out how to make much of a meal for the family during the dark days of winter but there is no better food for the soul on a day like today than green, growing plants.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Gone, But Not Forgotten
Our snow is gone.
The plastic sleds left in the yard on a snowy day have melted their way down to the leaf covered ground.
But a shortage of snow is no real deterrent to little girls who are ready to play.
We are just calling the sleds “boats” until the snow flies again.
Don’t open the door!
Those smiling faces are merely the technique that snowball fiends use to gain entry into nice, dry, warm houses!
Once the flurry of snowballs and giggles are released the fiends will run back off into the snowy day, leaving you mopping up the floor until their next attack.
But the worst part is that they unleash such a blast of snowy day cheer with each volley that their giggles become contagious and the serious-stop-throwing-snow-in-the-house voice can’t seem to make an appearance because you are too busy throwing the mopped up snow back at them.
On second thought, open the door.
Every house needs a little snowy day cheer!
The chickens are ready for winter and it’s a beautiful sight. 
They live in an old hay wagon which was converted to chicken coop that we move every few weeks all spring, summer and fall. It works beautifully. The wire floor means I don’t have to shovel out a chicken coop and the easy mobility means the chickens can roam out away from the house and gardens all summer long.
I love my chicken coop.
But in winter the chickens need a little extra warmth. So every fall, at the last possible second, we pull them up close to the house, plug in a heated water bowl and stop up that drafty underside with a ring of straw bales. Today was the last possible second. John and I moved the bales around the edge as Clara jumped inside, out of the wind and snow, letting us know where we needed more straw.
Maybe my chicken coop doesn’t fit your definition of beauty but as I stood back, job finished, chickens ready for whatever this winter may throw at them, the sun peeked out through the clouds. The straw shone golden in the sunshine, it’s clean smell filled the air and it was just my kind of beautiful.
If you’d like to see what the chicken coop looks like without it’s winter wrapping check out:
Behind the Willows 