What's Your Favorite?

I could not have asked for a more glorious day in NEWA.  It was probably about 40 degrees here.  I stomped trails all over the place and reset the game camera when I found huge (moose or elk?) tracks near my trail to the creek.  I wanted to break out the lawn chairs and sit on the front porch and drink a beer with a friend (or my husband but he isn’t here to enjoy it).  We don’t have a porch yet anyway.  The front of the house faces south and the heat off of the metal made it perfect T-shirt weather today.

The days are getting longer now.  The sun drops behind the western hill at about 4:00 p.m.  This is much later than just a couple of weeks ago.  The chickadees are chirping and flitting all about.  There are a couple of blue jays hanging around (could it be those crusts of bread I toss Frisbee-style out the back door?).  

The dogs (and Bones the cat) go walking with me.  While I was stomping out trails, Bear (75 lbs.) would take off across the crispy snow and soon be buried deeper than he could walk.  He then bounced himself back to the trail and stayed behind me.  Weiner dog (9 lbs) could walk on the crusty snow and not fall through.  This is new for her because the snow wasn’t so crusty before.  She explored all over the place and I had to keep calling her close so I wouldn’t lose track of her.

Bones (the woods adopted cat) was just a blur that sounded like a wild animal in the woods, first on your left, then on your right.   If she didn’t occasionally dart up a tree and show herself, if would be a spooky feeling that we were not alone.  

When we first moved up here in August, I always believed that summer would be the best time of the year here.  Not too hot, lots to do (fishing, kayaking, swimming, exploring) and all those trees.  Of course to date, we had only been here in the summer.  

Then autumn came.  I loved autumn.  The weather turned cooler and the tamarack trees turned the most beautiful shade of yellow.  The Oregon grape turned red and the animals were out every day.  So I thought autumn was my favorite season up here.

Then winter came.  I was prepared for the worst.  We were going to be snowed in for months.  No place to go, nothing to do, desolation, loneliness.  That didn’t happen.  We didn’t get mountains of snow.  The road is plowed all the time.  There was just enough snow to enjoy without having to shovel all the time.  The sun comes out much more than I anticipated and at night, whether the sky is clear or not, it doesn’t get real dark!  Any light from the sky or the moon reflects off of the snow and it is just beautiful outside. 

I think Winnie the Pooh described my heart today best when he said “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.”  I love sitting and looking out my window here in NEWA.  But I cannot decide which season is my favorite.  And, spring isn’t even here yet!