Farewell to watching the snow banks mount to the window sills and the thermometer drop out of sight,
to pulling elastic snow pants cuffs down over small boots,
to snow caves, snow men, and snow angels,
to a world that sparkles like a thousand diamonds in the sunshine,
to stepping in unexpected snow water puddles in stocking feet.
Farewell to the sometimes exquisite, always relentless work of the winter wind,
to the battle for an open driveway,
to the endlessly shifting sea of snow dunes,
to snow banners off the shed roof.
Farewell to rainbow sun dogs,
to silver moonlight on midnight blankets of snow,
to Orion, that great starry hunter,
and to the way he and all the rest of the host of heaven twinkles most splendidly on the bitterest of winter nights.
Farewell to conjuring up baking projects just for the sake of making the kitchen cozy,
to scooping up great bowls of freshly-fallen snow to make snow ice cream,
to in-season citrus in the refrigerator drawer,
to rosy-cold cheeks bent appreciatively over steaming hot drinks.
Farewell to the best and longest ski season in years,
to solo breaking trails through the sunset fields,
to swishing beneath the low-hung golden-green cedars while the swans murmur to each other along the banks of a laughing river,
to laughing with friends through the trials of sticky afternoon snow,
to the great frontier of yet-unexplored trails that must now wait until next season.
Farewell to the long dark of winter evenings,
to dinners made elegant by candlelight,
to laps made warm by quilting projects,
to chapters read aloud by lamplight,
to games played late with old friends, and new.
Farewell to winter.
Welcome to spring.
“You have established all the boundaries of the earth; You have made summer and winter.” (Psalm 74:17)
Whether the calendar says so or not, the last day of August always seems like the last day of summer to me—and seeing that always makes me kind of sad. Nothing against fall or even the coming winter, mind you. I truly love the changing seasons. It’s just that summer in Minnesota is somehow just a little briefer than the other seasons, and I never quite manage to get in all the swimming and fresh peaches on ice cream that I want to before it’s time to pull out the sweaters and hot cocoa again.
Red is for ripe wild strawberries discovered along fence rows, sweet and warm with sunshine…
Orange is for a monarch butterfly, minutes old, clinging trustingly to my wide-eyed daughter’s finger…
Yellow is for the elegant beards of irises…
Green is for sun-dappled woodland ferns…
Blue is for swan families floating on riffles of water…
Purple is for brilliant masses of fireweed…
This was a November unmatched for beauty, as autumn lingered gloriously long—and these are the quintessential pictures of it in my mind.
the rustle of drying grasses in the gentle breeze as the sunlight gilded it all to royalty…
the frosty mornings…
followed by warm and golden days…
But kind as it’s been to us, November is still a month of transitions as it must be, a split personality, if you will, bridging the gap between autumn and winter—and “they say”, whoever they may be, that the time of the inevitable change is at hand. There’s a winter storm warning for the weekend, and it’s time to finish that project of putting small girls’ mittens on strings that I’ve been putting off because we just haven’t needed them yet.
Rejoicing Hills 