Imbolc Black Mountain Moon
The snow has come. Three times I’ve shoveled a couple of inches off our deck, maybe more, and there was an equivalent amount on it when I put the dogs to bed.
While I worked out this afternoon, I watched the snow through the window of the loft. There is a pristine, ancient beauty as the snow falls among the lodgepole pines. In a deciduous forest the trees would be bare, resting sentinels, waiting out the snows and the cold. Here the pine’s red bark and green needles, their dominance in the landscape gives a solemnity to the snow.
The montane ecosystem has had pines and snows for a long time. Our presence here is as voyeurs, not integral parts. That may change, as the journey from visitor to inhabitant, to co-habitant grows longer and our stay here takes root in this rocky soil and thin air. Now, for now, we watch from a distance, still new.
There will not be a warm-up following this snow. No free solar snow removal. The cub cadet will work tomorrow morning. If the predictions are accurate, it will work again on Monday morning, too.
