Day: February 16, 2016

The weather has gone somewhat mad, as most of you know and many have experienced. Yesterday, it was – 10 degrees when we woke up, today it was more than 50 degrees warmer. Over the night, an ice storm that left the ground covered in a sheath of slippery ice. I could barely move in it, and even the vaunted border collies slipped and slided all over the place before giving up and hanging by the corner of the barn.

Red just stared at the sheep, staying focused on his work, and Fate slid into the barn wall, banged her head,  turned in resignation to lie down and wait for me to crawl out there, one step at a time. She seemed to think I had a solution, I did not. I gathered them up and, for the first time, we retreated. For the first time ever, they were both happy to get out of that skating rink.

The forecast says heavy rain, temperatures up to 51 degrees today, and then colder again tomorrow (not all that cold.) I’m not sure I can recall a 24-hour period in which every single kind of weather appeared.

Flowers are nearly unique in the natural world, there are few things that are so fragile, live such short lives, and share so much beauty while they are here. A couple of weeks ago, Cathy Stewart, a friend from New York City, visited us and brought some beautiful roses in a vase. We scattered them all over the house, they brightened almost every room that we have.

But roses, like other beautiful flowers, do not live that long in the dry air of winter, even under Maria’s watchful care. This small white one is the last Rose, it was in this small vase in the bathroom, and seeing that it is beginning to die, I brought it out for a last day in the sunlight on the table that Maria has just painted.

I believe it is happy there, even grateful.

I saw that it belonged there, it is the right place for the last day of a beautiful flower, and I hope I die as gracefully and well when the time comes.