Hope is the thing with feathers (or snowshoes)

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

By Emily Dickinson, the poem above spoke to me this mid-March morning. The past month has been icy gray and this morning we awoke to inches of fluffy fresh snow. For those of us ready for spring, it may feel like two steps forward and one step back, but its so beautiful it must be appreciated for what it is.

Walking through a hum
of fresh fallen snow,
I am 6 years old again.
my puffy coat dwarfs me

as my mammoth mittens trail

I wonder at the whiteness

of the winter world.

~ Eileen
My own poem from this morning :)



Above, Andrew takes a moment after snowshoeing to switch his socks-- and to do yoga (tree pose-- how appropriate in the forest. Good job Andrew ;).

Snow has been a wonderful gift, a source of true playful goodness this winter. The beginning and end of this blog are some pictures from a snowshoeing trip up Gavan Hill at the very beginning of January. I apologize that all these posts and pictures come at once: our JV house committed to not having the internet at home for 2009, which limits posting time to... right now when I'm using wireless at the house I'm dog sitting at. But I hope you enjoy all these posts, even as tardy as they come! Thanks also to Emily Buck, for generously sharing her snowshoes, snowshoeing expertise, and pictures. Not pictured: the 2009 World Championship Snowshoe-Sumo Wrestling Competition. (make a ring in the snow, put two people in, and the one who wrestles the other out of the ring first wins.) Maybe next year we'll catch it on film. :)