All That White Stuff

It's snowing for the first time this year! Now that I live almost in town, snow has returned to romance. When living in the cabin a half an hour from town down and through a muddy pot-hole-y road all slippery and slide-y, I am so glad to be loving snow again as when I first moved to my String Creek cabin when I was a teen. At first, it was frightening, being all alone if I had to do something outside, because I knew if I slipped and fell and broke something, I could easily be snowed over and smothered with a white blanket.
Sitting next to the fire with a hot cup of tea, reading and even watching the snow fall from a window was far sweeter; but firewood had to be brought in and when I raised one goat for milk, she had to be fed and brought in, so these chores had to be started the moment I saw the first flurry of snow and finished definately before dark if it were an afternoon storm. Then I would run inside to load up the wood stove and fill the kettle up with more water. (I always kept water in it when there were a fire, so that humidity filled the air.)

Now, with this in-town snow, there was little to do. My pipes were long ago wrapped. Any plants that were delicate had long ago died back until next spring. Now it was simply time to enjoy all this white stuff.

I lie in bed and slipped the glass curtains to one side (which I thought looked like snow the way I had arranged four layers of them and crocheted lace pieces tacked to the wooden part at the top of the window itself when I first moved into the caboose) and admired the way the snow had fallen on the heads of my stone girls and filled their baskets and some had fallen in the criss-crossed arms of St. Francis and from a distance looked like he was cradling a lamb. It was a holy card in assemblage.
I have been in bed all day and watched the sky grow dark until I thought it was going to rain, but the thermometer kept dropping and dropping until I suspected it was going to snow and it is.

I love weather. I love to watch the garden transform itself with the changing of the seasons. Except now, I am so lonely. I couldn't even go to church this morning. I had sat up all evening on Saturday at the art opening and I think the metal chair did my spine in. I hope by tomorrow I can walk. When it hurts this much and even the morphine doesn't help, I am such a crybaby. Oh, it's all inside. I'm silent, but the pain is like snow on the hands for too long. And now it's dark and I can't see the lovely white stuff lying on the roses and the bricks, so I think I'll close.