winter

Today was one of those very cold, quiet mornings that seemed almost holy. The horses walked slowly up the hill and I realized their steps were tentative because the ground was frozen hard beneath their hooves, especially odd, I imagine, after these weeks of mucky earth that gave way up to their fetlocks in some places.

I fed breakfast and removed blankets amid soft snorts and the quiet crunch of feed, and then went out to open the back field, throw hay, and check water tubs.



Evidence of winter. The sheet in the back field's trough was solid and broke into a perfect puzzle.

The trough in the paddock had already been broken early this morning, and the puzzle pieces were still intact, pieces of green pressed beneath like specimens under glass.



I sat out and watched for a bit as the horses methodically stopped by the trough, drank, and then found the hay piles. Mid-morning in winter and all is just fine in this little corner of the world.

footprints from my novel

Today was Virginia Woolf's birthday...

In A Room of One's Own, she wrote:

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery."

flora segunda

I love this Young Adult novel - don't know anything about the author except that this is her debut novel and she has a lovely and most unusual name. Ysabeau Wilce. It has all the elements to pull me in: spirited female protagonist, books, magick, a huge house and stable that has its own mysteries and quirks, and a Butler who can whip things into shape in the blink of an eye. :)

It begs to be read out loud. Maybe we'll try that next, after the individual solo reads.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite.

-William Blake