February House Log

Snowed In

House Logs are an offshoot of my Nature Log and We Make a Home series, created with the intention to record the beauty and seasons during (at least) our first year living on our new piece of land! I’ll be sharing photo essays about each month, and all the photos will be taken at/in our home and on our land as a way to observe and appreciate this new-to-us place. It will cover explorations both wild and domestic.

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The first half of February kept us fully frozen, with the lowest temps of the season and more and more snow. The long blue shadows of winter danced over the ever-changing surface.

In isolation, the textures look almost alien, sometimes warmed by the quick but glorious golden hour at the end of the day.

The winter light is like the narrator of a storybook, casting my eyes where it falls most beautifully each day.

I have loved paying attention to imprints and figuring out who has come wandering near the house or what wind shook the trees that night.

We leave our own inelegant tracks criss-crossing across the yard until the wind covers them again.

In the second half of the month, when one day in a handful would creep above freezing or the sun would burst out across a blue sky, the cycle of dust and crust began. A wet, frozen layer of ice covered by a new, light dusting of snow—impossible to walk across if you weigh more than 75 pounds. But, much better than a couple feet of fresh snow if you are light as a rabbit.

I saw a flock of turkeys amble by without my camera. But they pitied me, I think, leaving this beautiful, delicate trail.

Turkey tracks look like little arrows.

I think the snow-drenched days will be over soon, so I celebrate them. I search out the winter chickadees (and yes, I have been searching).

I watch the snow fleas (harmless, minuscule arthropods) crowd the surface of the wet snow.

I listen to the marcescent beech leaves flutter their long-extended, but near final days in the wind.

I imagine the first cold frost that curled this fern into its winter form.

I think of the seed moon growing and rising toward spring.