I’m never fond of shoveling snow, but I do most winters. This winter is bland – so far – so it was a beautiful surprise to see the night’s dusting – no shoveling required!
Snow Moon Gift
Category Archives: Country Living
Early morning light
Waiting with a mug of hot coffee for the beginnings of a new day is such a special time to me. Fresh beauty comes with the unfolding of a day. Today fine ice crystals adorn leaf and berry like fragile lace.
Hard frosty morning
I woke early and looked out the window into the still starry darkness. I love the stars in their travels through the sky. As first light came it seemed the grass was white with frost so I checked the temperature with my personal thermometer, yes, the rhododendron leaves were curled down against the cold. As the sun continued its rise, the glory of the hard frost sparkled everywhere. One must see it quickly!
Then bundled against the cold I set off for breakfast time. As I settle into the booth, I tell him I’ve brought some ‘home light’. He slowly views my captured images and I wish for a large screen view to wake the others here to the miracle of light on a hard frost morning. Hope for the light to shine into all our cold, hard places to transform the day.
Winds
Sometimes our plans are upturned, things become difficult for a season.
We clean up and go on, changed but hopeful!
Autumn
Every year I look forward to it. That special September or October morning everything changes – the air, the light, the very feel of things.
Fall has come, slipping into the neighborhood in the night. The visit is short and glorious.
Spring Joys!
The rising temperatures of spring bring bird song and light, changing our view to fresh green and bright color. Spring is a gift that still lightens our spirits, lightens our days and stirs us to brighten the world about us.
When I was very young, there was a great flurry of activity each spring. Windows where thrown open and cleaned. Draperies were changed, walls were washed and sometimes freshly painted, carpets were changed out and floors had the wax renewed. Everyone was energized, everything was lightened.
Housekeeping customs have changed in many ways and I am grateful! But there is still that inner stirring, a nesting instinct, to clean, clean out, throw open the windows and to make things fresh; in our homes, our gardens, our wardrobes!
But while we are lightening our homes, our wardrobe, our gardens – how about our dispositions? In the freshening, I find some dusty, actually rather grim and dirty attitudes lurking in the corners of my soul; petty things that had loomed so large in the shadowy light of the winter gloom. Now seen in the light of the Word, I find no use for them. Now is the time to lighten up, to cast off negative attitudes and sing a new song of praise to our God.
LORD, shine the light of Your Word into every corner of my soul. Help me to let go of old ideas, grimy thoughts, and strongholds of judgments and other rotten sin that I may be found clean and pure and without spot or wrinkle or any other thing that displeases you. Let the fresh breath of Your Spirit blow through my attitudes changing and renewing my mind. Put a new song in my heart. And Lord Jesus, help me to see with fresh eyes the beauty of the colorful members of Your body. Amen.
The flowers appear on the earth…
“…the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.“ Song 2:12.
After the long, cool, rainy beginning of spring, green is galloping up the hills. Glowing in the early morning sun, dogwood blossoms uncurl slowly. Rhododendrons show pink promise, there is excitement in the air. I stop in my garden chores and watch the new kids leaping, racing on tiny sure feet. I find myself grinning, catching their exuberance in life, I’m energized.
