Snow Dreams

Did this really happen or was I dreaming?
The snow is gone now
and it's raining.

Thursday I drove to El Dorado Hills for our annual Gourd Club Christmas Potluck. We had a great time.It's about an hours drive from here and the weather was dry. The snow was everywhere on the hills. The drive was beautiful.
Yesterday I cleaned the house, then went out and did some Christmas shopping (in the rain).
Today I'm driving to Elk Grove to Baby Bean's Birthday party. They are having the party in Elk Grove because all of his friends are still there. Even though my little family has moved to the Bay Area and lives in my mother's house, they decided to have the party in their old neck of the woods.
I miss the beautiful snow but I'm glad it's gone when I have to drive anywhere. I'm use to driving in the rain but the snow makes me nervous. We had so many accidents in this county when it snowed. People just don't know how to drive in the white stuff. I prefer to stay home and stay out of the car when driving is so hazardous.
So, because I have to travel over the hills and through the woods to the valley today, I'm very thankful that the snow is gone...., FOR NOW. It can come back anytime it wants to though. I'm hoping...., I'm wishing...., for a White Christmas. Wouldn't that be a California miracle; twice during the holidays? I'm doing a little snow dance.....

Busy Day Post

Wouldn't life be worth the living?

Wouldn't dreams be coming true?

If we kept the Christmas spirit

All the whole year through?

~Author Unknown~

Wordless Wednesday: Frozen Flowers, California Snowlady and Sunlit Fig Leaves

(Please click on photo for close up. Who sees Carl behind the Mexican Sage?)

Frosting On the Cake

Some mornings you wake up and wonder what you did to deserve such a beautiful day. Yesterday morning was one of those days. I must first remind you that this is California; California below 1200 ft. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains get a dusting of snow maybe once a year in the winter and if we're lucky, the snow lasts for a few hours until the sun come up.
Now, to all my blogging friends out there who live in the Northern US, please forgive my childlike excitement and blatant, enthusiasm but...., It snowed yesterday and I took almost 300 photos of this place..., and Oh my gosh it was beautiful...., and I was here to see it..., and I only came inside to eat and get warm..., and I built a snowman, a real snowman...., and the dogs ran around with me..., and look how BEAUTIFUL IT ALL IS.

Except for the Heavenly Bamboo berries, all these photos were taken during the storm in the morning. Later, when there was more light, I took this close-up of these berries because they looked like ornaments out there. Against the snow they glittered like a red string of lights.

I don't know what it is about snow. This is what I consider one of the "gifts" in my life. I want to be out in it...., walking, by myself..., feeling the cold and listening to the QUIET. I know that it can be deadly. I know that we couldn't drive down the road to town and have gotten back up to the house easily yesterday. I know, now, after the power went off all day, that we would need a wood stove and a decent gas generator to survive this weather longer than a day. And I know that we are at the age where living in this kind of weather all Winter would be much harder than we can imagine but.... look at this. A birthday present I didn't expect. A wonderful coat of Mother Nature's silent rain. The picture postcard of my dreams right here at 3 Dog Farm.

The animals all did quite well. Maggie wasn't sure at first but then she got into it. She enjoyed following me around, trying to find any good smelling stuff under the snow that she could eat. Carl acted like he was born in "snow country". He took to the whole thing as if it was just another day. He has been off his leash since the last Rattler crawled back into it's hole for the Winter, so he was running, flat out, all over the yard, playing in and eating the snow. Since he is such a low rider, we had to dry him off from top to bottom every time he came in.
The goats were not as happy about all of this as the dogs. They didn't like the numbing cold, the frozen water in their buckets or the fact that I was running around like a crazy lady taking pictures. Brownie was no where to be seen. Annibel was in the garage trying to stay warm and the chickens were inside their house and not saying a word.
Please indulge me for the next few days. There will be more pictures. This is a major event in my life. Each time that it has snowed in the last few years I was gone, down in the Bay Area. This time I was home and, not only did it snow for most of the day but it's so cold that the snow is still all over the area this morning. Which gives me an opportunity to go outside and play some more.

I have found my "inner child" and I'm indulging her. I know this makes no sense to people who live with snow all Winter and I can see that 5 or more feet of this would bring life to a halt for a while. But just give me one Winter. I want to live in.., oh.., maybe Montana, for one Winter. I could go over the mountains to Nevada. I could just go up to Lake Tahoe. Just once..., for one Winter...

But yesterday, for a few hours, I was living in snow country. Now, excuse me while I go outside and play. The sun is shinning, the snow is all around us on the hills and I have MORE pictures to take....
(Please remember to click on these photos to see them close up.)

The Enlightened Heart- with thanks.

I didn't realize that this little book had traveled with me for so long. My oldest son gave it to me for my birthday in 1989, the year that I found out that the cancer I had fought so hard to eradicate was still in my body and had returned to mess with me again. The struggle to rid myself of breast cancer at 39 years of age had come once more, five years later and I faced even more therapies and decisions. It was not a good year.

...and then as the year came to a close, my son, who was going to college then, sent me this book. It was a lifeline. A beautiful, inspiring volume of words written by some of my favorite poets and filled with a way of thinking that helped me survive another year of living dangerously. Each page was a candle of light to guide me through a dark and scary passageway.
Now, it is filled with torn pieces of paper marking my favorite poems and old photos that for different reasons needed to be side by side with certain words and phrases. This small book has developed character and each poem has become a life companion.

Many things have happen in the last twenty years. People have come and gone from my life. But death has taken on a different meaning since then. It's not the menacing, premature destroyer that was going to take my life so many years ago. Now, it will be the final kindness. The secret that answers itself and the chance to widen the circle of my knowledge.
Chuang-tzu wrote, " When we understand, we are at the center of the circle, and there we sit while YES and NO chase each other around the circumference" . If you question at all the ideas of this world this last statement really hits home.
I prefer to think that it's about that HOLY GHOST, of which Mr. Gerard Manley Hopkins writes
" Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs....
because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods....
with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. "

Thanks, my son, for this gift of hope when I needed it most. Thanks for your beliefs and the person that you are. You make a difference to everyone around you. You and your brother(the poet who will write his own book someday) are my true joy and happiness in this life.