Snowshoe at Dusk

I went for a brief, yet hilly, snowshoe this evening at the Arboretum. The snow is deep and fairly dry. As I lurched down the trails I felt lonely and vaguely like Mary Shelley's monster or the big-foot in the famous video. Luckily I missed running into the cross-country skiers that I came up behind. I didn't feel much like talking, not to mention it would feel weird me being alone. In the dark. In the snow. Monstrous.

Thanks HDT; I Think I Will

"Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary."
Henry David Thoreau

Is That REALLY How You Spend Your Time?

Ok, so I thought that the guy on Sunset Hill with the perfectly manicured lawn, the penchant for removing every pine needle as it fell, and the same damn pink petunia borders every blasted year was... well, you know, OCD or at the very least boring and unimaginative. However, the new guy down the road from us takes the cake. Not only did he blow all the leaf litter onto our dirt road with his gas-powered leaf blower BUT he used said machine to blow all the pine needles off the basalt out-cropping on his property. Now, mind you, this is no small pile of rocks. It is a nice park-size thing probably as big as his house that looks very natural. Or, at least it did, until he 'maintains' it. He had done this once before and I thought maybe it was a fluke and maybe he was taking out his frustrations on any weed or needle that dared land on his outcropping. But, alas, no! I don't believe any weed, or grass stem, leaf or pine needle will ever have a snowball's chance in hell of lasting more than a week. And I thought that the pine needles cascading over the tops of the rocks had a nice softening affect on the scene. I bet his socks are perfectly arranged in his drawer and his spices are alphabetized...OMG! Get a hobby or something! (I will try to get a picture of this some time this week)