Thursday, December 26, 2013

A Visit From Jack Frost

There was magic on the first day of winter last Saturday.  As I awoke and looked out the window, I was greeted with a fairy tale scene of hoarfrost coating every tree and shrub. Jack Frost had arrived. There before me was a dazzling sketch in charcoal, white, gray and silver.  My day's activities took me out into the countryside to the home of a good friend who had invited me to see the ice castle creation she had built on the deck.  Kitty's creativity seems to know no bounds.  She had emailed me throughout the week, recounting her experiments to construct such an ice sculpture.  The castle, complete with turrets, rounded windows and two drawbridges, was a magnificent crystal diorama made even more beautiful by the white lights that back-lit the structure.  Against the hoarfrost, it was as if the castle was from a fantasy world.  I didn't want to pull myself away from the beauty of that castle and the scene surrounding it, but other activities were on the schedule. After caroling, shopping, saying farewell to a friend who had recently passed, visiting other friends at our local nursing home and attending a party, Larry and I ended the magical day with a winter solstice event at Devil's Lake State Park. Truly, I could think of nowhere else I wanted to be on that longest night, celebrating the start of winter and the incremental return of daylight.  We joined new-found friends around the campfire, sharing stories and roasting marshmallows.  There were no stars overhead, as a snowstorm was coming our way.  The sky was thick and had a pink hue to it.  Whatever storm pattern was moving toward us was going to be big.  The sky told us so. And so the snow came, white and silent, reminding us that winter had indeed arrived, filled with hoarfrost, pink skies and an ice castle that made it all enchanting. 

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