Snow Week

It’s been SNOWY the last few days! The first day, I reveled in the snow. We’ve had that crusty, icy snow for a few weeks, so it was time for some fresh powder.

I usually get up at six, but it isn’t light until after seven, so just as I finish reading and journaling for the first hour of the day, it’s the perfect time to go shovel. This snow has been dry enough that I mostly use a straw broom to sweep. I loved sweeping snow at first. The picture is above is from the middle of a three hour sweeping stint. It’s just about the best sort of job one could have…outside, not too physically demanding. But now, after four days of snow, it’s a little tiring. The snow piled up on the side of the pathways. I have a cracked and dry callus between my thumb and pointer finger from the broom. My neck and back are sore from leaning over. And it just keeps snowing.

I’ve started going up to the prayer chapel in the mornings again. I got scared off for a bit by all the mountain lion tracks around it (plus the game camera footage of a big mountain lion a couple dozen feet away), but I figure what the heck. The odds are slim, especially since it’s so dark when I go up there…not dawn anymore. It’s freezing in the prayer chapel. I’m just about the only one to use it, so I feel bad turning the heater on at any time except when I’m actually in the room, but the other morning, despite wearing all my heavy snow gear, my fingers were so cold I couldn’t hold a pen. It was two degrees F outside. So now I turn on the heater when I head home for the night and it’s semi-bearable in the morning.

I love that as I sit in the prayer chapel, I get to watch the sunrise over the canyon ridge. I don’t usually see the sun itself because of the way the ridge is, but if there are clouds they turn the entire sky into a sunrise.

It’s snowing again now. This is my view as I sit in the dining room (taken half an hour ago). The snow usually blows in from the south, so the Hook (pictured) turns all misty with clouds as a warning about the coming snow. I tell you what, Christmas feels real here. I’m loosing my grinchy-ness by the day.

xoxo

Ceci