1.16.15 Look To The Hills

A Fall Over Friday; a gusty day, as I sit and work on writing projects, pausing to watch the Chickadee and the Downy Woodpecker and the Nuthatches out my study window, feeding happily upon the tree barks, eschewing the feeders and seed strewn upon the ground, for the moment.

     As the ever raucous Blue jay family mingles with several Cardinals, the crowd of Morning Doves cautiously deliberates from the tall branches, being the most cumbersome to depart, thus the easy mark come January and February, of the adolescent Hawks, the occasional flurry of muted grey and white feathers left upon the snow.

      I watch in wonder at the capacity of the towering old Maples to sway, and have such adaptable flexibility for such enormous heavy things,

     

as one lone Crow catches my eye, passing through the tall branches, buffeted about by the wild winds, yet enjoying the ride as they play in the updrafts, spilling about high in the air, then off, and on their way again.

      I leave the warm study, filled with snoring cats, to discover that the old sweet Shiva has wandered down the small stairs herself, a certain urgency to go outside, had an accident, the pup having inadvertently stepped a bit in it, and tracked it clear across the kitchen floor and on into the entryway carpet. Oh well. Out comes the wet cloth to wipe wipe his big furred feet, as he looks equal parts chagrined and unhappy.

      Out I bring the sweet old one, to finish her ministrations, and then stand, the wind sweeping through her beautiful red husky fur she inherited from her mother,

      as I stand at the window watching for when she is good and done with some time in the fresh delicious air. 

                      

     She stands, smelling, the sun in her eyes and upon her wizened white face, then leans down and relishes the taste of snow.   

     Eventually she hobbles  toward the back door, and then, so do I, from inside, out in my slippers as she approaches me,

     and I look to the hills, as the Bible urges, as an old friend had put upon her gravestone some many years ago,

     and there I see the sun shining between huge Cumulus clouds racing by overhead, so that the hills over the river and far from here are bright and colorful in the way that forests are, come winter.

     The wind presses against me and the door and the old dog and bandies about  through the trees, large and small, as one more beautiful winters day moves on its way.