The cold mornings of January are now here. Ten below zero again and again. I look out of my chilly studio window and looking north see a drifted white field that leads to a low hedgerow lining a brook. The sun brightly highlights the steep bank on the other side and my eyes follow up and across an unmowed field that has sprigs of brown – gold grasses pushing up through the snow. On the far side of the field is another strip of large trees before a layer of long white field which is capped by a high tree covered hill, puffy in the early morning frost. The trees to the east are highlighted golden in the early sun. I am humbled by nature’s beauty.
I think back to those mornings on the farm when I would go out and see the hutch calves with frosted faces, heifers with muzzles and ears tinged in white, and my two Morgan mares with their long manes spilling over with the devil frost They would all be frisy, happily diving into their food. The milking cows would be in their stalls until late morning when they too would go outdoors, to romp in the snow and eat until the time came for the evening milking.