Winterscape

It was the coldest morning of the year. When I left home, it was minus 8 degrees F (or minus 22 degrees C). I just knew there would be some amazing sights to see, so I took a long, roundabout way for my morning journey, so I could see what was happening out there in my cold winter world.

The mist was rising on Spring Creek, and everything was a white winter wonderland. But very, very cold. It was probably the very best winter mist I've ever seen. The frost mist was like a living creature; like angels dancing in the morning light.

I stopped and checked in on Our Lady of the Snow (as I think of her now), and found both her and the babe doing well, despite the winter conditions. There were tracks in the snow nearby. Someone visits them regularly. Somehow this thought pleased me.

And then, having seen so many beautiful and amazing things already, I took Trout Road, heading in to work. And I caught my breath when I rounded a corner . . . and saw that against a pale blue robin's-egg sky, in the silver-gray shadow of the hill, every single tree along the creek was covered in white hoar frost and sparkling in the morning sun!

I believe this waterway is a branch of Spring Creek that swings through the valley. There is a wonderful, picturesque farm just around the corner, where I once saw the lady farmer striding through the field on a spring morning, cradling two black, woolly, adorable, tiny spring lambs, one in each hand; and the ewe trotting peacefully along behind her.

On this particular morning, all of the cows at that farm were steaming in the sun. And the littlest calf, black with a single white stripe around its middle, stood looking confused in the cold, cold morning sun. And all around it, my frigid, beautiful central Pennsylvania, white with snow.

The soundtrack: U2, White as Snow.