Take a moment and see it . . .

        Winter isn’t my favorite season, but new snow can keep me at a window for hours.

        At no other time can we see God’s earth so untouched. It is an artist’s canvas, or a writer’s paper, waiting for someone to make it theirs.

        My view crosses a Golf Course and nothing marks that white space except the black limbs of leafless trees, silhouetted against the white snow. And if the scene comes at a moonlit night, the allure of a warm bed easily falls into second place.

        With daylight I watch to see who or what, man, bird or beast,  will put the first mark on that empty ‘canvas’, and usually it’s a stray cat, leaping to my back door where I keep food for such homeless creatures.   And at my front door, if I’m lucky, there will be footprints of Paper delivery and snow plows, but that’s another world.

        It is in the back where life reveals itself. I watch as other life comes, and no one can tell me that animals have no brains, for time after time, I’ve seen that no matter what comes  first, every other prowler will follow its ‘pathway’.  In other seasons, each cat has its own route between homes, but after fresh snow, all animal life, even the raccoons, follows the steps of the first explorer.

        The next mark on God’s pristine scene are His Geese, or wild Ducks, and they land on the snow where, most of the year, they found grass, and they begin to peck. They must get down deep enough to find, dig, and eat the thick juicy grass roots which are year-round good eating. They stay and peck for at least an hour.

        There have been no deer for several years, and I understand they were taken to the mountains.  I wish they were still here, for they did no harm, and blessed us with their beauty.   No one begrudged them the few garden goodies they ate in the summer, and their disappearance has left  us the losers.

        Where electrical lines come into the house, snow will pile upon them, until the weight becomes too much and the snow will drop right beneath the wires, making a line as straight as if a draftsman, with his ruler had placed it there.

        Morning time reveals the marks of night visitors. There once were many dog tracks, but now the law says all dogs must be leashed at home and, in a way that is good, but I miss the neighborly ones that I came to know, and who visited to see if we had left a Soup bone or such, for them to gnaw on.   Tempus fugit.

        Within but a day or two, that first pathway becomes wider and deeper, telling me that there is much going on that I never see.  The cat’s dish also tells a story, and if some leftover soup or such that I’ve put out gets frozen solid, I finally see that some animal has fought its crispness and made it a meal. Raccoons?  They are tough little creatures.

        Once upon a time, when I was a child, men and boys were busy before dawn, digging pathways from the home to the barn, chicken coop, pig pen, coal shed and so forth. Now, people pathways are only to mail box and sidewalks.  I must also take a few steps to my garage, but most garages are now attached to the home, and  paths unnecessary.

        By the end of just one day it no longer a pristine world.

        No, I don’t care for winter, but I do love the clean canvas that a snow storm brings and I make it an occasion to sit at my window reveling in God’s untouched world. But I also live in a world of humans, and no matter how wonderful the night and dawn was, when Ron comes with his snow equipment and digs my son’s  and my paths, it is good. And I know that the sound of him putting the snow off to one side, is also a blessing straight from God. And I accept them both.