Little things leave me feeling restless in January. I meander through stacks of gardening catalogues, plotting another heritage rose or three, new plots of herbs and heirloom veggies. Hours are spent in the kitchen summoning old Helios with cilantro, fragrant olive oils and recipes straight from Tuscany. Candles are lit, and endless pots of tea are brewed, sunlight dancing in every earthenware mug.
When playing with with filters, apertures and shutter speeds, I am entranced (and sometimes irritated) by the surprising transformations brought about by my madcap gypsy tinkerings. Beau and I haunt the woods, peering into trees and searching for a leaf somewhere, even a single bare leaf. We scan evening skies, desperately hoping to see the moon, and we calculate the weeks remaining until the geese, the great herons and the loons come home again.
It may not seem like it, but change is already on its way. The great horned owls who make their homes on the Two Hundred Acre Wood are refurbishing their nest in an old tree about a mile back in the forest, and they are getting ready to raise another comely brood. The female is the larger of the two owls, but her voice is higher, and when she and her mate call to each other in the woods, we know who is where. It delights me to think that it is all happening again.
While Beau and I were out this morning, a single oak leaf was teased into flight by the north wind and came to rest in a corner of the garden. The pairing of golden leaf and bluesy snow was fetching stuff indeed. The leaf bore in its poignant simplicity an often and much needed reminder. This is the sisterhood of fur and feather, of snowbound earth and clouded sky, of wandering eye and dancing leaf.
2 comments:
And you were there to capture that moment, then share it here. Gratefully I read your blog, and see that leaf and snow.
Only the truly perceptive find this beauty in nature. We also have a pair of great horned owls in our woods. Not sure if they will nest here.
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