First Snow

Walk into the luminescent morning. The yard glows eerily from the sodium yard-light like a stage. A stage ready for a one act play starring silence. Then begin the slow dance of morning chores. Somewhere offstage, horses snort and paw the ground. They are cold, wet and hungry. The sky starts to blue up. More snow than we expected, maybe nine inches. Trees laid over. In the distance, branches tick and creak, the sounds they make as they give up, and give in, to gravity. Then the crisp snap and tree-crack; the whoosh of the falling snow. Then the quiet rushes back in.  Soft wind lays thin snowdrift up the trunks of the tall pines. I feed the herd. They are soaked and frantic. They crowd the tractor, convinced they are starving. Snow hushes all the noise, yet amplifies light and color. The fiery reds and yellows of the apricot tree glow in the the cold blue hue. A faint ember in a bed of ashes.

Comments

[Shari]

That much snow already?! Hope all your trees survive.

[Faye]

Will you email me when your next grass fed lads march to Wiggins? Faye