Happy Solstice!

Today is the official beginning of winter and the shortest day of the year. After an amazingly mild and beautiful fall, cold weather arrived suddenly in Minnesota in late November. And then last week frigid weather arrived, but only for a few days. Before the extreme cold we had another snowstorm with 6-8 inches of snow falling on our already snow-covered ground.

“I prefer winter and Fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape–the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ”
–Andrew Wyeth

The frigid weather of late last week and the weekend left us Monday with the thermometer landing above freezing in Minneapolis. Monday the temperature was in the mid teens when I took a hike at Big Willow park in Minnetonka, MN.

 Although I usually don’t like to go out with my camera when the temperatures are below 20 degrees, Monday’s mid-teens temperature felt balmy compared to the previous days of 20 below zero temperature and even lower wind chills.

I worked on a photo assignment that a photographer friend and I chose to work on (from Doug Beasley’s Vision Quest Photo Assignment cards).

It felt good to be out hiking. I’ve haven’t been out a lot recently due to some pain issues but the pain has decreased and I am so happy to be out enjoying the woods again.

I could hear the tree branches high above me making clicking an clunking sounds as the wind bumped cold branches together. It was surprisingly loud and more than once I looked up to make sure a branch was not falling.

This time of year I often have the trails to myself. I love walking with only the company of the trees and nature around me.

“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it. ”
–John Burroughs

Today, on winter solstice it’s above freezing again. I took another hike in the woods (I’ll share more about it in a later post.) and with the exertion of my hike and the mild temperatures I ended my hike with coat unbuttoned, gloves and hat in my pockets, and was still dressed a little too warmly.

Don’t let the winter weather keep you indoors. Take a walk in the woods soon.

May you walk in beauty.