First Snow

The first snow is beautiful even if it is not too much to stick around. But you remember the look of the landscape, and the chill that ushers in the small, anonymous flakes. It's Longfellow who wrote, "Over the woodlands brown and bare, / Over the harvest-fields forsaken, / Silent, and soft, and slow / Descends the snow."

I notice in the last two lines the physicality of the language, the "s"s and crumpled rhythm that mimics the pace and indirectness of the snow. Sometimes we forget the sound of snow as much as its splendor falling. Reminds me of Frost: "The only other sound's the swept, / Of easy wind and downy flake."

The cold still feels nice. Bounced up to 38 degrees today. Ice still on the creak.

Buddha Cliff

What do you do with a box full of plaster Padmasambhavas and Green Taras that hadn't come cleanly from their molds? While not marketable to most people who need exact depictions of these deities, these still beautiful and calming images found perfect residence in our forest on a cliff that overlooked the river and flood plains. Here they can behold the changing scenes of the forest, and the forest can behold them.

Lateef and April spent an afternoon recently placing them with simple prayers, inviting them to reside in this land.

First Frost

This Fall I anticipated the first frost with the excitement of one waiting for Christmas. After living in Taiwan for two years--and distracted by its own distinctive meteorological and astronomical peculiarities--I didn't realize how much I missed this fascinating phenomenon. Nor had I ever really considered how strange and beautiful it really is.

And so in journalistic pleasure I post these photos to my blog. Also for those who might be viewing in Taiwan!

Fall

I took a walk today down the hill to the Train Station. Most of the leaves are gone, but the trees that still have leaves are brightly yellow.





Nneka followed me down. For an old lady, she's still pretty adventurous. Here she is at the pool where sometimes we see a beaver.



You can't tell because of these photos, but last night we had our first frost. Let's hope I can get a picture of that soon. As for now, it's great Fall weather.