Thursday, October 27, 2011

Let It Snow!

Right now, we are experiencing the earliest minor snowstorm that I can remember.An d we do not even have our woodstove going yet!


THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,
The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.


Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered,
“The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”

-Excerpt from The First Snow-Fall

By James Russell Lowell

Monday, October 17, 2011

One Happy Girl!

Eric + Hannah = Epic!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Autumn Bike Ride

Earlier this week, Mom and Dad had their annual Columbus Day bike ride on the nearby Railtrail. They biked eight miles to a town where they had lunch at a local eatery, and then did some early Christmas shopping. After bicycling another eight miles back to the parking lot over the asphalt trail, they came refreshed.