Winter Yule Musings

Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash

The wind gusts in bursts of force, chickens ruffling feathers and flouncing off in a cackle of panic. The roar of wind in the pines and rattling metal. Lead gray skies and scudding clouds. Winter faded grasses bend down nearly sideways, undulating in static waves from brittle stems. Brown seed heads stiffly shake and vibrate.

A  sign blows maniacally, flopping irreverent in the wind that cyclones down main street, whipping the stars and stripes to sailboat sail loudness. A snow-covered peak plays hide and seek with the snow laden clouds, heavy, damp, icy. In out, in out, till grizzled grey-back bison mountains are snow-dusted, and conifer fur-back travels like rippling hide, up to mist that hangs at nose blowing , muzzle puffing height. A white fog and smoke forming, swirling in the late twilight air. Hovering at steeple tall, the white spire straight and sharp, piercing the sky.

And distant peaks could also be gilded in the goldest light, shiny as a new coin, glimmering and glinting for a brief moment before the watery lemon ice sun slides quickly down, as if cold itself needing to scurry off to stick its toes in the warm sands and tropical waters.

Clear day, so bright the sky is finally an icy robin blue and a ice cold wind blows down from the mountains, bringing the metallic scent of snow, ice, and pine tree needle freshness. Florescent lichen full of damp fungi spore scent, musty, sweet, sharp, full of the woods. The woods calling. Their dormant loveliness silent, but for a burst of raven calling, or the chitter chatter of stellar’s jays and robins, the catcall of a towhee, the blackbirds and grosbeaks chatter whistling in the trees. The streams burbling over rocks and boulders and ice pockets.

Photo by Rodolfo Marques on Unsplash

Winter solstice is here, come, gone, and just one day now and the day has grown minute moments longer. Yule and holiday is in the air in just its own way. The earth is laughing its way towards springtime, but paused right now for a moment of reflection. Lit candles, pull down the mistletoe, the pine boughs are sharply scenting the air. Tuck in bows and all colors of red and green. Fling out bells and brightly colored lights. The sweetest tastes are in all forms, in sight, sound, and smell.  Starlight and winter light and all the moments to gather one’s thoughts together. Just a pause.

 

I have three days off for the holiday, which I am trying to savor without falling apart. I am at a crossroads of frustration again and it’s all happening too often. I’m trying to take moments when I can to observe and mentally document what I see. I have missed being able to get stories out, my head too full of work and life. I sit down to write and get discouraged. I can’t seem to get the ideas out. I want to work on my Christmas stories, but they seem stuck.

I hope that all you lovely readers have a beautiful Christmas. If I think about writing again, well you’ll hear from me then, but if not, Merry Christmas, dearies.

Love,

Kate

Seasons Change And…

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

Autumn is here. It’s funny how it hits so differently depending on where you live in the country and how it affects you differently than someone else. I was talking to Nathan the other day and it isn’t even ‘fall’ where he’s at, yet here leaves are changing and the colors are happening and it is clearly autumn, in that glorious setting of warm days, brisk mornings, and chill nights. The smells are out of this world. I LOVE autumn. Always have. I love the seasonal shift much more these days than before when I was this total Autumn girl. Now, give me summer, give me spring. Even winter has a part of my body enclosed around it now. But still, Autumn holds her hand on me the most.

I haven’t gotten around to writing about it much, being that I get super distracted on my days off, and on my days at work, I have time in the morning but I feel very zombie-ish. Today was one of the first off days when I don’t feel totally wiped for a change. It’s rather nice. But I still haven’t written that much. So much to write about. Wilson and his girl Friday are galavanting off on walkabouts throughout the area. Hands shoved into back pockets, her in riding boots, him in tennis shoes, hoodie? Maybe tweed, sorry, too much Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar magazines showcasing tweed in the fall, have gotten to me.  But they are tramping about the countryside as I am indoors. Good for them, the louses. I jest. It’s so much fun to mock your characters. To poke fun at them. To injure them with a well placed criticism. It doesn’t do any harm.

So there they are, off tramping up one hill and down another,
fingers shoved into back pockets as icy needles fly from the north wind
a shock line up the scalp as radiant heat burnishes from the front,
the sun tilted down at lower planes and angles,
and they climb up over barbed wire, snag on berry bushes
fingers stained purple as plump ripeness bursts into mouths,
grinning, garish smiles of dripping sweetness,
then off-ward again, they climb up steep hills, to sit on a outcropping
granite boulders warmed in the afternoon light,
watching the golden disk slip down behind the mountains, a linger of
golden lines from each segment it sinks down
a line of trees far away, still you can see the toothed branches
you could nearly count the pine cones, maybe
and an unkindness of ravens caw their way overhead
while a wake of buzzards drift upwards then down in spirals,
updrafts, downdrafts, the shifting warmth of the day
now brisk and biting in like little nails, curved thorns of the blackberry,
and twilight sets in so much faster, and faster, and faster,
as they stumble their way down the hill, the warm piney scent of the coniferous gasses
chasing them homeward in the lingering light……

Whoa, where did that come from? No seriously, I just started puttering with a thought I had in my journal and suddenly I have a scene for Wilson and whatever her name is, the muse. I gotta write this down. Cool.

It’s exciting when I write something that is just spitting out from my head. I haven’t had a lot of that lately. I’m distracted by too much phone usage, and well, actually, I’m reading this and that and getting caught in books. Then mentally drifting off.

Well, patting myself on the back, now I have other things to get done. Enjoy that bit of poetry that just slipped out. And honestly, the title of the post came from a new Post Malone song, “Circles”, but I never got around to my music tastes right now. Another day….

Kate

October 31st – Write 31 Days – Autumn: A Collection

Solomon’s Gold (solomon’s seal)7

Double Trouble (asters)

Rayed Disc (calendula)

Rainbow and Drops (columbine leaves)

Blue Bright (borage flowers)

Alien Flower (Nigella or Love in a Mist)

Holding Water (mum)

Smooshed (mushroom next to a small railroad track)

Up a Creek Slowly

Rusty Rays (rudbeckia)

Reaped (harvested winter squash and pumpkins)

Dill Burst (dill flower

Pink Yarrow

Solitary

This month has had me taking more pictures than I have most of the year. While I tried to pick favorites and things that would go well with poetry and thoughts, there were so many I didn’t use. Especially in the last few days because I had a plethora of images worth of posting. So, today, in honor of the end of the Write 31 Days challenge, here is a collection of images I didn’t use, but are so so pretty, I can’t not share them with you.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me this month for autumn pictures. You guys have been the best with your likes and viewing and such.  You make it fun to take pictures again.

Happy Halloween

Kate

October 30th – Write 31 Days – Pear Leaves

Sometimes it’s the really simple things in life that are beautiful. I was out snapping tons of pictures the other day and out under our pear tree, the dead leaves changed from yellows and oranges to brown. But it’s pretty shades of brown that have so much texture and simplicity in their scatterings over the ground. I had a hard time deciding which image I liked best, but of the three, this one with the blurred top and the slight greyness to the color, screamed, post me!

October 29th – Write 31 Days – Nubbly Oaky Carpet

The falling leaves
Drift by the window
The autumn leaves
Of red and gold……

The color on the hills are predominantly yellow, green, and shades of a muddy ochre color that mixed with the rest, is rather pretty. The cottonwoods along the creek bank are yellow and the fallen leaves smell of this sticky sweet rotten smell that I love. It’s not really a bad smell, musky maybe. Like the smell of tobacco, it makes me hungry.

Up on the hills the big leaf maples are splotches of yellow, and the nubbly carpet of the black oaks are intermixed with the spikes of the pines.  The mist invades and sinks through the trees, veiling them in a not so clear haze, at least it happens on the foggy days, like today was.

It’s mists and breaks in the sun and yellows and browns and spice and sweet….

Kate

October 28th – Write 31 Days – Pinky Mum

I’m not terribly inspired with writing a lot, so for today, enjoy this very pink mum that is actually more purple in real life, but came out pink with my camera.

Kate

October 27th – Write 31 Days – Red Oak

Sometimes a picture comes out more spectacular than I think it will. Today’s picture of a red oak leaf looks like the leaf is right on the glass!  It’s kind of amazing how things turn out so perfect and you aren’t even trying, or well, you just don’t think it will be that way.

The colors on the trees has been so spectacular this year, but I have failed to capture enough of it, waiting till it is nearly twilight to take pictures, which does not help. Nor have I been inclined to take my camera out with me that much. But the black oaks are now turning on the hills and there is this fluffy, nubbly carpet of yellow ochres, and yellow browns, tans and various shades of yellow from them. It’s a warm feel.

This oak in the picture turns a lovely red…. then the leaves turn brown and hang on the tree half the winter. It’s rather nasty looking, but the red is especially stunning.

 

I robbed the Woods-
The trusting Woods.
The unsuspecting Trees
Brought out their Burs and mosses
My fantasy to please.
I scanned their trinkets curious-
I grasped-I bore away-
What will the solemn Hemlock-
What will the Oak tree say?
~Emily Dickinson

Kate

October 26th – Write 31 Days – October’s Playboy

The Playboy rose has been flinging it up and rounding out the year with another round of blooms. The rose has bloomed several times this year, each flush more beautiful then the last. Roses in October, nearly November? It’s a rare treat. The color like the best can-can show. A flashy little number to liven it up a bit.

Can you tell I love my Playboy rose? We now have four plants.  Heaven. I’m in heaven.

Ribbons of the Year-
Multitude Brocade-
Worn to Nature’s Party once

Then, as flung aside
As a faded Bead
Or a Wrinkled Pearl
Who shall charge the Vanity
Of the Maker’s Girl?

~Emily Dickinson

Kate

October 25th – Write 31 Days – Golden Mornings

In fall, it’s common to wake up to lots of clouds with the threat of rain. I’m typing this on the 24th where the prediction of rain is at 100%…. It’s currently raining.  I could have sworn there was only a 30% chance, but that is so far from what it’s doing now.

But some mornings there is this thick blanket of clouds, the mountains shrouded with mist and the cold wind blowing; yet in the east, there is this break, right over the mountains. Just enough of a break for the sun to come up a shining, dazzling diamond. Breaking through the mist, shining so bright through the pines, giving everything a golden glow to the otherwise cold morning.

Morning that comes but once,
Considers coming twice-
Two Dawns upon a single Morn,
Make Life a sudden price.
~Emily Dickinson

Kate

October 24th – Write 31 Days – Gorgeous Grape Vines

The grapes actually changed this year. Massive amounts of burgundy and red browns. I went on a leaf pressing binge after I saw all of the gorgeous color. I love how they trail along the fence lines and twist and color things up. The color of all things this year has been especially lovely. And some of it hasn’t even changed much. It’s  a strange year. But I thought a little color was in order since we are getting another storm.

Kate