Frosty Flora

 It often escapes me, but there are plenty of things, small things, regular things that come with each day that I believe I should rejoice in.

It must be the weight of the hard things that makes them settle to the bottom. I'm told it is only natural to start at the bottom and then work your way up. So easy to feel like I'm at the bottom when I've been living in a small trailer for fourteen months, living in isolation, existing far away from my best girl, far away from her in so many ways. Eating microwave meals every night and bedding down not long after the sun slips away. It is difficult to not even be sure where home is for me. My soul sinks and rattles at the bottom with all of those hard things.

Then comes a frosty sunrise. The eastern light blazes through the bare limbs of the alder and cotton wood at the edge of Pilchuck Creek. I rise in the light for I need to open the gate for contracting crews to come build my house. 

The house, still a construction site, but edging toward completion...

A month ago, the autumnal maples dressed in a seductive red one October morning and delighted me with their fine, fancy colors outside the guest bedroom window. Fall has a tinge of melancholy, bidding farewell to summer's abundance but offering a crisp air of expectations, heralding the coming changes that fill so many senses. Autumn is rich in harvest tastes, rich in color, rich in thankfulness for what has come high in the summer.   

Red October surrounds shows around the Pilchuck

Now a month beyond the scarlet October's foliage, I find myself waking into a frosty November landscape, the long, dark night let the chilled fog slink into the trees and grasses.

With the sun comes hope and a magical change; all the world is shine with tiny encrusting diamonds which have grown on every surface overnight. Bright rays dispel the charming fog, giving me that crisp, enchanting view of the land. 

I rejoice in small things. I have been granted a new day, I rise from my warm sleeping bag and land of my feet with good health, and an abundance of small blessing of family, a faithful wife, a couple of kind kids who are nothing but joy and a chance to build a home that was once but a dream.

I grab my camera and look at the fields around me through the view-finder. A camera in hand, held to my eye, gives me a refined focus on the world. I adjust the settings as I stop and stoop into this dazzling, sunlit world as I make my way to the gate 1/6 of a mile down the graveled driveway. 

I capture the charm of the frosty flora before it melts away like fairy gifts. I am delighted and captivated by the simple beauty.

I share it with you.

Autumnal grasses grow silver

Encrusting crystals of ice dazzle my eyes