Christmas morning dawned with the faintest covering of snow. Certainly there was no inch of snow by 7 a.m. to make it an official white Christmas. There isn’t even enough snow to cover a chicken’s toe.

Just enough snowflakes to powder dried flower buds and the camellia.

But it only takes a single coating of snow to transfer the pond into a scene out of the arctic, turning it into an ice-covered bay on Baffin Island. But what are those two eyeballs staring up into the sky? Maybe aliens have landed and are exploring the depths of the pond.

By evening, the aliens are long gone, taking the snow cover with them.

When we installed solar panels on the garage a few years ago, I didn’t realize we were installing an art piece. On frosty mornings, it’s a beautiful slab of ice, a metaphor for the transient nature of all things. By the afternoon, the slab of ice has vanished in the brilliant sunshine.

Frost turns molehills into towering mountain peeks, Kilamanjaro and Mt. Rainier rise above the frozen plains.

This year’s winter solstice arrives on a clear, cold, icy morning. 8:28 a.m. is the magic moment when the sun reached its lowest point in the sky for this year. You would think the earth would shudder and groan at reaching this momentous spot and turning around. And yet, as far as the earth is considered, the solstice is nothing, just an imaginary point in its circle around the sun.

Bushy cattails look out over a frozen pond. Frozen oregano and lavender a winter garden make.

At solstice, King Russel is strutting his goods. With their superb eyesight and innate magnetic sensitivities, I wonder if the chickens sense that today is a special day, and tomorrow will be just a tad longer.

There is something calming about a stack of firewood. Each time I slice through the logs and remove a section of wood, new patterns emerge. It’s like watching Tibetan monks erasing an elaborate Mandala, only in slow motion. Every few days the chainsaw erases patterns and reveals new ones. By late spring, much of the stack will be gone, just a memory.