A January walk....

 HP is fascinated with ice.  She remembers "The River" (as she calls the pond by our house) in its liquid state with leaves and sticks floating on top and frogs and turtles on the bank.  And now it's frozen and still.  She wants to ice skate, but it's just not thick enough ice yet.  Since it's been warm during the day and cold at night, the pond is freezing and thawing and the ice is becoming less and less desirable for skating, but much more interesting to look at.  I took these pictures of the ice where we were walking today.  Isn't it pretty with the willow leaves embedded in it?

 I showed HP the water bubbles just under the surface of the ice.  This is why we cannot skate yet.

 I took a walk by myself out in the pasture yesterday and traipsed way down to the old shearing pens which was once a place of  hard work where the Mexican shearing crews made camp and sheared 1000 sheep or more every spring.  Now the shed is falling in and broken down beyond repair.  I found a shard of crockery there and thought about the cooker-ladies of the camp.  I wondered if there were beans in that crock or cooked, shredded lamb.  Did she accidentally break it and lose the contents?  Or did it already have a crack in it and she was just using it up until it was worthless and then left it behind? 

The rock was found along the trail.  It's a type of fossil from our gravel pile.  I'm fascinated by the whole that went all the way through it.  The piece of wood was likely a fence post once upon a time.  I love the deep grooves in it.

Every walk brings me home to the barnyard where Fluffly is always looking for a handout, a scratch behind the ears or a good petting.  He's quite photogenic, isn't he?  Walks are very therapeutic to me and always have been.  I like being able to think my own thoughts, to look closely at the landscape or the sky or a fence line.  I am forever dragging something home -- rocks, feathers, an old piece of iron or a missing gas cap from the tractor.  It's invigorating to walk against the wind and then to turn around to go home and walk with the wind and into the sun, unzipping my coat to cool down.  It makes me feel alive and part of the land that I live on to be "out there" and appreciating its beauty and its ruggedness.  God is there.  I'm never alone.