What’s it with this winter stuff?

…you know, that time of year that the little flowers just do not bloom?

Sitting here just a few days before the winter’s solstice, I was perusing shots to backup and take off of the slowing laptop when I pulled this little beauty up.  Nice little Shooting Star shot early in the autumn this year.

There were great numbers of them all along the stream bed on the warm day Ruth and I went wildflower hunting.  I certainly got the jeans grimy laying down trying to catch nice angles and hoping to block a little of the wind.  The flowers were bouncing about quite a bit and down in the stream’s gorge the light was not to very forthcoming.  There were wildflowers everywhere though, and we were determined to shoot them all or keep shooting till our shutter finger cramped. (Ok.. we use shutter releases or timers, but you get the idea.)

Mind you, I do love shooting in all seasons.  Just last weekend Ruth and I were out in the 30 degree temperatures following a Red River Creek up to a faintly flowing waterfall.  There were ice formations on the surface of the creek that were pretty fantastic.   Ice is the wonder of winter that the red and yellow leaves are of fall.  And spring?  Wildflowers!

One of my most memorable hikes I did alone… Raven Run.   We had, overnight, gotten 3 inches of nice snow… not too wet, not too dry.   I was the first on the trail, or thought I was till I saw tracks.  Deer, birds, rabbits… all kinds of tracks!  The snow put an incredible dampened hush on the scene with only the very light crunch of snow under my boots to be heard. The sun filtering through the leafless trees turned the snowy surface into a carpet of glittering diamonds.  It was an otherworldly and inwardly healing experience. Everything else in the world fell away and it was just that wonderful white expanse of forest floor and frozen stream that filled my eyes and soul.

Every season has those kinds of offerings.  There are moments and places in each that reach into you in special ways…  and I love them all.

But now, as I look at the weather report suggesting sleet then snow in the offing, I am nonetheless longing for spring and the return of all those wonderful beauties and the cornucopia of incredible flora and fauna our Kentucky has to offer.

So are you like me?

What’s it with this winter stuff?