Escape

Spring buds on the maple trees

This week’s photo challenge at WordPress is:  Escape.

Just wanted to let you know.  We’ve finally busted out of winter here in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula after almost seven months.

We’ve successfully escaped.

We can only hope someone hid the keys of that winter jailor…

Melt

Rushing stream with tiny waterfalls

The Long Winter seems to be exiting just in time for May.  We can only hope.  Last weekend the temperatures soared to about 70 degrees (21 C) and our snow began to melt, melt, melt.

Three

We humans scurried outside, sun and warmth-deprived creatures, and we luxuriated.

I found an old cushion and sat with my back against maples and poplars and spruce, trying to feel the sap rising up my back.

Sat and delighted in Spring.

Up all night birthing a goat

At morning’s first light–before a busy day–slowly scrolling down the Facebook home page.

Marvelling at the differences in friends, family and acquaintances.  Marvelling that I’m not feeling irritated at the differences this morning–that the mind is not judging, sorting, categorizing as it loves to do.

Instead, look at the sparks of God!

This one ponders if she’ll be up all night birthing a goat.

A week-old baby goat. OK, I didn’t help birth it.

April madness

Chickadee on six foot snow bank

The long winter continues.

Another eight inches of snow yesterday morning, give or take three inches.  (It could have been eleven inches.  We’ve ceased measuring in late April.)

I am really OK with it.  No need to offer condolences.  We escaped to Florida earlier in the month, thereby easing Endless Winter Restlessness Syndrome.

I’m not sure the other locals are faring as well.  One senses a certain madness in the flitting eyes of grocery shoppers.  Alcohol sales are up.  People tend not to make sense anymore.  Just sayin’.  The livin’ is not easy up here in Cabin Fever land.

Hullabaloo

During the snowstorm

Such a hullabaloo in the Northern forest!

Spring Seed Boy fell in love with young Snow Maiden.

Oh, it’s forbidden, don’t you know!

Icy beauty

The Winter Queen, in her fury, locked Spring Seed Boy in a shed behind the six-foot snow bank.

Spring Seed Boy cries and it rains.  Young Snow Maiden weeps and it snows.  The Winter Queen gripes and it snows some more.

The oregano silently stews.

The Sun King tried, yes he tried, to negotiate a truce.  He shined his hardest, but to no avail.

The Mourning Doves in the bird feeder mourn.  The poor robins, just in from the sunny south, look in vain for worms beneath the endless white snow.  The bear refuse to leave hibernation.  The trees refuse to leaf.  The ice on the lake refuses to melt.

Be kind

Reaching for nourishment

Be kind, dear one, be kind.

If you can find it in your heart, be kind to one another, for everyone you meet–not just the downtrodden, not just the homeless, not just the friend dying from cancer–everyone you meet–faces some sort of anguish, some sort of fear, some sort of challenge.

Tiptoeing away…

January, 2012. Our Little House in the Big Woods.

You’ve been expecting this, haven’t you?

You’ve been wondering when Kathy is taking another blogging break?

You clever reader.

You know how it goes.  She writes like crazy for months, and then she accelerates and writes every day for a while, and then she announces a blogging break.  Her last 11-day break occurred in December, so it’s been a long time…

She’s gently closing her blogging door and tiptoeing away.  She’ll leave on a night light in case you want to read past stories–or look at past pictures–while she’s mostly off-line for a while.  She won’t even be reading your blogs during her break.  :(

Thank you for your support during The Long Winter by the Shores of Silver Lake  Lake Superior.  (You Laura Ingalls Wilder fans caught the attempt at humor, right?)  I have so appreciated your readership and comments during these long cold northern winter days and nights.  You’ve helped make this heart feel even warmer than sitting by the wood stove with your support and connection.

May you be blessed as the seasons change.  From our Little House in the Big Woods to your neck of the woods…  Love, Kathy

P.S.  Almost forgot to tell you!  Even though haven’t been taking as many pictures as usual during the last year or so, I found enough photos to share a favorite from each month, starting back in January, 2012.  Will leave you with more than a baker’s dozen of memories:

February, 2012. A quiet moment in Nicaragua. (Our nephew married there–an amazing trip to San Juan del Sur.)

Easter on ice, 2013

Hello world!

Picture this. Ice fishing over 280 feet of water on Lake Superior. Floating on 18 inches of ice.  Convinced by husband to leave warm house on Easter morning. No one else on ice, except one lone snowmobiler. Everyone else at church.

We celebrated Easter Services in tent.

Husband snapped this picture.

Coffee was enjoyed in the fellowship hall.

The fish have not risen. Yet.

Ladybug in parsley and other winter stories.

Ladybug in parsley. View One.

Life is so weird.

After writing yesterday’s post about my current camera conundrum (say that fast three times) I am suddenly feeling re-inspired about taking pictures.

Twice today have dug out the Canon Rebel and photographed.

The first photo shoot involved a ladybug discovered in parsley purchased at the grocery store.

Imagine!  A bright red ladybug crawling through deep velvet-green parsley.

Perhaps some folks might be disturbed at insects in their groceries, thinking them vile creatures worth annihilating immediately, if not sooner.

Not I.

I delighted in the bright red crawling creature.  Isn’t she beautiful?  Isn’t she vibrant?  Doesn’t she remind one of spring as a possibility?

“Twizzle twazzle twozzle twome”

Our woodpile

How many of you know the incantation “Twizzle twazzle twozzle twome”?

Think carefully before you answer this rather innocent question.

If you know the answer, it may date you.