Snow Dust

Each year the seasons offer up such an assortment of variety... and we have learned, you can never depend on what the weatherman may say! We have been told multiple times this year that snow is coming, and yet... each time nothing has come of the warnings and watches.

Now we are having a severe polar arctic cold that has settled into this area, with no snow.  This is not good for pipes and water lines, as snow helps to insulate the ground and protect the ground from such a hard freeze. However, this year, we have gotten a solid freeze for almost a week now, with no snow. Thankfully, our pipes so far are holding up, and I am keeping a little water running in the taps to prevent any frozen lines.

Meanwhile, the skies have been providing us with spectacular shows...

Billows of clouds piling around each other in the softest of pastel colors.

Gentle rays of sunlight dusting the clouds with the last rays of color.

The skies offered up to us the most glorious of joys, spectacular in their moments of fame on December's stage.

The clouds rolling in were bring cold, very very cold weather... and the war was on...  in the skies.

Cold and warm clouds meeting and greeting each other with quite majestic displays of color.

The cold air was pushy, 

and downright determined 

to settle in for the long haul.  

The mountains gave a long sigh, 

and accepted their fate.  

I never, ever tire of the majestic views of the mountains and skies that surround us, and their unequaled expression of drama.

It was quite breathtaking to watch the storm clouds roil and toil together in the skies above.

And then the very skies seemed to be emblazoned with a heat and warmth as a last firebrand in the skies that was soon replaced by the cold polar arctic air that has settled in around us since then.

Blazing skies, purple-hued mountain ridges, deepening shadows, billowing frothy clouds... spectacular details gloriously displayed in December skies.

As the skies were roaring and roiling in all their glory... my heart again lifted to the Creator, the One who makes this wonder more common than a penny on the ground to me... oh how blessed I am, and how I wish to never, ever take for granted, each moment the Lord grants my eyes to see this beauty in the skies.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And since the cold weather won the battle in the skies... we have all been bundling up as the cold air has enveloped us in its icy embrace.

My poor chickens! The next morning after the storm, when I went to let them out for the day, they just crowded around me, as if they were saying "What has happened?  Where is the soft dirt to play in? Everything is cold, hard and frozen!"

Instead of busily pecking in the dirt, chasing bugs, and taking dirt baths, the poor things are standing around on one foot and then the other, trying to stay warm.

I was amazed though at how they adapted.  I was able to slip on thermals, hat, scarf, gloves and a thick warm coat.  They had none of that, only their feathers.

After a while, they realized that there was nothing I was going to do to change their situation, and they grudgingly began to wander around, hoping to find something not frozen solid to eat... which wasn't much!

Seldom would you see them all clustered together like this... but in temperatures of 16 to 18 degrees... what else could be done?

I took a peek inside my greenhouse, and was surprised that everything was still green! Wow, I was amazed!  All my flowers that were still blooming in November... are still blooming in December!  I have to say again, this is quite an amazing thing for me to see!

The icy frost had layered the tops of the mountains with white, but the valleys below were quiet and silent, barren in their cold state.

As the sun set a day or two later... you can see the difference... the frozen white tops of the mountains, and the muted gray-blue skies.  No excitement today... the cold had settled itself in and even the skies were silent in their acceptance.

Today we were forecast to get more snow.  And it did snow today, but it was more like snow dust!  It has been so cold that the snow is falling like dust out of the sky, sticking to nothing, and blowing around in its wispy, feathery softness.

Each season brings its own recipe for just how the season will play out, and it is a mixture that calls for a "wait and see" attitude.  We have not had one significant snowfall yet this winter, and that is part of the mixture we get to enjoy.  You just never know what the season will hold, and hence... we just enjoy each day that comes, and find the beauty wherever it is at.  It is there.  You just have to look for it... and bask in the beauty of the moment when it happens. And that is the spice of life, the joy of living, that comes in holding your hands up and open to whatever the Lord has in store for you , in this season, and in this moment, in today.

Are you stopping in the busy-ness of this season, and looking up? Looking around? Looking for the beauty of the moment?   For beauty is around us, and we must look through the eyes of our heart to see and enjoy it.  What beauty have your eyes seen today?

Today I saw beauty in the snow dust that fell.  It was so cold that the snow falling was like little white pieces of dust falling out of the sky, muting the ground slowly.  It was not the lush and glorious snow that settles grandly on every edge, nook and cranny of the world, but instead it silently dusted the landscape with wispy feathery whispers of white.

And while the snow "dusted" all day long, and never amounted to much more than what you see in this picture... I found a quaint and unique beauty in it... the soft snow dust.  And then I realized, I never thought of snow like dust before.. and I found beauty in that thought too.

What have you found beauty in today?