C'est au cause du soleil

We have had the first snowfall of the season. It is too early. I sat swathed in woolly clothes and accompanied by two cats. I could have ignored the snow, but the magic of first snow was calling to me. Between snow showers, the sun bathed the landscape in the warm golden light of the season. And so, I pulled on even more woolly clothes, set my cats aside, and put on boots and took my camera for a walk down to the moss.

I had spied the postie make a snowball and admire his own tracks in the snow from the comfort of the living room, now I crunched along thinking only briefly of making a snow angel. A bird caught my attention. I went back to the garage for a pair of suet balls. I tucked the first one in the usual spot in the willow tree by the back door. The other one I wedged into a crook in the branches of an ancient Sycamore tree where birds often shelter in their gnarls and nooks.

One of my neighbours rolled carefully along the road. The road is good enough and wide enough in good weather, but even a little snow makes for slow going. She stops briefly and shares with me the cards made from her daughter in law's photographs. The photos are beautiful; the scenes are beautiful; and the sharing in her pride and her family are also beautiful.

The snow starts up again; I head toward the moss; she eases slowly, gradually up the hill. We are not on the first or second or even third priority of the gritter, so the roads will be at the mercy of the sun, wind, and whatever desultory traffic comes this way.

I walk into the grassy verge of the moss--the tamed area where neighbours walk their dogs. Not even they have ventured here today, so I hunker down out of the wind to catch these wee seed pods dancing above the snow line. My camera battery sends out an SOS and I tuck my camera into its case, bundle up against the wind and content myself with footprints and the fading light.