I Couldn't Resist

6:15.  Grey.  32 degrees.  What a beautiful day.  I'm up and out the door.  Oh!  Did I mention there is no wind?  Let wind be defined as anything from 15 to 62 MPH.   The flagpole south of the power plant was rippling westward.  That's a good sign.  An east wind means SNOW.  The air was heavy with that prospect.  After pickin' a few stray tissues, a wadded McDonald's sack and two empty Camel cigarette packs, the glory began.  "How full of the creative genius is the air in which these are generated!  I should hardly admire them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat,"  Henry David Thoreau confided to his Journal in 1856.  Henry and I have that at least in common--with the possible addition of resistance to paying taxes and his dislike of any alcoholic drink, preferring that every man, "...be intoxicated by the air he breathes."

As I continued pickin'--a plastic spoon, a saucer from a potted plant (I wonder what happened to the plant?), a Copenhagen tin--I heard odd clickety-clack sounds which compelled me to look up.  My reward was the glorious sight of a heard of perhaps 40 elk galloping down a small bank, crossing the road, plunging into a ravine and climbing up the other side where they abruptly stopped amid the Ponderosa.  This demonstration in fluidity was made all the more charming by the backdrop of snow crystals, which could have been falling for hours, but chose this moment to create an ethereal scene for me.  OK, perhaps that was a bit dramatic, but I stood motionless and momentarily captivated none-the-less. 

Arriving home an hour later with a bag full of what had escaped others' trash cans, I was greeted by a cheerful fire in the stove.  Let the day begin.

Always,
Winter