Snowy Feathers

Yesterday morning, I went bird watching in the lovely snowy woods with K. As she pointed out, in doing so we joined the Audubon Scoiety's international Christmas Bird Count. For most of the part we bushwhacked, me in snoe shoes and K on X-country skiis. The time was indeed very well spent. The woods were beautiful and quiet. The snow formations on the bare branches reminded us of all sorts of things - ranging from candy and marsh mellows to shaving cream :)

But really the most gorgeous part of it all was the pervasive softness ... I do not want to refer to it as silence, because there was the hush of the falling snow, the shush of a gentle breeze making the trees shower us with snow, the muffle of the water in the stream, the shuffle of life amidst a scene that loves to hide it behind its thick white silky drapes ... all of those silent sounds and visions cummulatively forming a soft and deep wonder. The evidence of life when it peeped out of the drapes was music to the ears, the chick-a-dee-dee of the chickadees and the chuk-chuk of the woodpeckers, not to mention the regular grid patterns on the tree trunks giving away the art work of so many woodpeckers that inhabit the wintry woods.

Of course winter in all her beauty is pregnant (only slightly so right now, but growing...) with certain negativities that result in my shoveling woes (or should I say scooping woes... the scoop is post-shovel) ... but hey, this might eventually give me those 6-packs I hear so much about!