Monday morning walk

Icicles hanging from the barn roof

Let’s take a walk.  It’s cold, but sunny.  Bundle up and you’ll be fine.  And boots!  Don’t forget to wear boots.  This is the Bogs, after all.

Our first stop is the barn to watch the play of light on the icicles.

The icicles hanging from the shady side of the barn have some interesting shapes along with a blueish hue.

Be careful.  Every now and then one of the icicles falls from the roof.  Most of them are not big enough to do much damage, but you probably don’t want to get bonked on the head.

Time to go down the sledding hill.  We’ll have to walk.  There’s not enough snow to sled.  I know.  That’s disappointing.  It would be much more fun to hop on a sled and wheeeee! our way down the hill.  Faster, too.  Oh well.  Let’s look at the snow on our way down the hill.  It is sparkling in the sunlight.  If you look carefully, the twinkling lights are a variety of colors.  I suspect most of the snow and ice will be gone by the time this post goes out.

A lot of the dried flowers and grasses have toppled over and are going back to earth, providing nourishment for the new growth that may well be stirring under the cover of snow.  We can still find plenty of them still standing or just beginning to lean towards the ground.

Last year’s flowers

Did you notice all the animal tracks in the snow?  I was able to identify a few.  Rabbit, deer, and raccoon are the easiest to recognize.  On the pond there are bird tracks scratched in the snow.

There are geese, too.  It looks like they’re having a conversation of some kind.  Probably trying to decide whether to stay or go.

Should we go this way?

Or that way?

They eventually went this way rather than that way.

Down by the cattails we’ll pass through a cold patch.  Colder patch, I should say.  It’s always a little colder in this one spot, no matter what time of year it is.  Some guests think it might be haunted.  I think it’s because the sunlight rarely hits this corner of the property.  The trees from the woods are in the way.  The ground is a little lower here, too.

It’s awfully wet back that way right now.  If you turn and look behind us, you’ll see where your boots crunched through the snow and ice, and now there are boot-shaped puddles marking the trail where we just walked.  I think we’ll turn around and head back up towards the meadow.  It will still be boggy, but we won’t feel like we’re sinking into a pond.

Grasses in the meadow

We should stop for a minute and enjoy the feel of the warmth of the sunlight.  It’s only here for a day or so.  Rain and snow are making their way to the Bogs.  The clouds will start moving in tomorrow afternoon, and the snow will be falling by bedtime.

Catching the sunlight

I think that’s about it for today.  My fingers are almost numb, and that’s usually a good sign that it’s time to go in.  We’ll walk past the mess that is the garden and then head towards the house where we can have some hot tea or cocoa and warm up.

Thanks for joining me on another walk.  I appreciate your willingness to accompany me, no matter what the weather.

Catching some rays

Have a delightful day, evening, night… whenever and wherever you are on the spectrum of time.  🙂

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