The day before Thanksgiving in the year of Emergence

It snowed in New Hampshire over night.  This is a capture from a webcam in Wolfeboro an hour ago.

The coffee pot, set to automatic, is my alarm clock and this morning the "Pikes place roast" is calling unusually loud only becuase it is so quiet in the cabin.  No red squirrels scampering over the roof.  No great horned owls hooting the woods away.  And certainly not wild cries of the loons penetrating the silence of the lake.  Just the drip, drip of the coffee perking. 

It is one of those mornings that one can simply lay awake and listen to the silence.

I throw on a set of long underwear, woolrich shirt, jeans and boots.  A pine knot or two under a couple of red oak logs will restart last night's fire.  Camera over one shoulder and the old Ithaca double bore  over the other.  I am more likely to shot something with the camera than the gun, but who knows a ruff grouse or even a turkey might present itself in a suicide run. 

And there is an old pine tree that probably predates the native americans that might offer a good image.  Not that I really need to expand my library of 50,000 or so images but my training tells me never, never to go out without the camera. 

I pass the little metal boat called "Putt", upside down on the beach and awaiting the spring fishing crowd.  Sneak through the parking lot with the sign stating that this is where the anglers park.  And on up the hill of the road.  Some one else has cross country skied before me.

Thats ok, the silence is still deafening.  I think that the silence of a new snowfall is the thing that amazes me the most.  It's as if the world has been insulated.  On mornings like this....no wind and the storm clinging to every exposed surface that can catch a snowflake.

The stream that feeds into the lake still runs clear and clean.  One could almost drink the water running over a stream bed created thousands of years ago.  Just incredible when one thinks about it.  A flowing stream is always alive.  The water that is.  Sure there are all kinds of little critters living in the water, but the water itself is never still.  Always moving.  What was, is.  What is, will be.

Eventually, the last sip of coffee is cold.  The morning light is too late for that tree.  No grouse or turkey, which is probably a good thing because I did'nt have to interrupts God's stillness.  No bear or moose for that "Will you look at that moment".  Just a pleasant moment in a lifetime of sometime pleasant moments.  Just the kind of moment to wish my family and friends a happy and wonerful family Thanksgiving.