Wonders of the Frost

We've had some cold nights for the past few days. On the deck, I pushed the pots with the Mexican sunflowers in up against the deck doors to try to save them. The first night was barely freezing, but the second and third nights were colder, and the frost took the sunflowers.

We got such joy from them, and we will miss them. I especially appreciate the role they played in helping to raise and release our monarch clan. When the weather was bad, I moved my butterfly babies onto those plants. It was like its own microclimate that provided shelter for butterflies, even in a hurricane.

So we've reached the end of our growing season here, finally. It was a long, wet, mild fall, with foliage colors that arrived quite late, but were very nice when they did appear. And on this morning, on my walk, I saw amazing frost. Almost hoar frost, it was that cold.

I was on my morning walk and I just had to stop and photograph the frost. So there I was, down on my knees on the frozen ground, peering this way and that, looking to really SEE. For this is how it is with ordinary everyday things: if you look REALLY close, there is often something amazing there. You will do well in life to try to see everything - somehow - as beautiful.

The frost shadows were something else entirely. For it frosts and turns the ground white or gray. And then the shadows keep the frost, as the sun comes and warms everything else up and melts the rest. So you get these perfectly formed shadows . . . of houses, trees, etc. This is what it's like to live in the land of the frost shadows!

My soundtrack song is Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, with Cold Shot.