{"id":162,"date":"2008-12-21T02:09:17","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T06:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogshevik.com\/garneredimages\/?p=162"},"modified":"2008-12-21T02:09:17","modified_gmt":"2008-12-21T06:09:17","slug":"on-winter-solstice-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"On Winter Solstice Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter.”
\n(Robert Frost)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is bitterly cold outside.\u00a0 The new-fallen snow is deep\u00a0and more is predicted to come down tomorrow,\u00a0accompanied by\u00a0even higher winds than those of yesterday’s storm and bringing with them the bonus of\u00a0negative double-digit wind-chill temperatures.\u00a0 But it is fitting since tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, that ancient celebration of light that\u00a0ushers in the winter season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But today, at least for a little while and perhaps in anticipation of tomorrow’s joyful candle lightings, the dank, overcast skies have given way to small blue spaces through which the low sun’s rays are shining brightly.\u00a0 The icicles hanging from every possible surface are dripping steadily on the southern exposures; from my vantage point here in the dining room I can look across the living room and out the big front window and see their bright drops and hear their soft tattoo as they hit the ledge outside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is a very pleasing thing, this quiet, light-filled moment.\u00a0 Though in the backyard the furballs are out in force, making up for yesterday’s lost foraging time and reveling in the warmth of the sunshine high in the leafless treetops.\u00a0 I was out there with them a little while ago, happy to see all of my most-loved cast of characters and taking advantage of the photo ops they provide.<\/p>\n

I haven’t forgotten my little holiday project, however, and it was very late Friday night\u00a0(or very early Saturday morning) when we went out to hunt down one of the sights on my list.\u00a0 It was after midnight when we got there (on purpose, certainly not because of the travelling distance) and I was a bit disappointed that all of the other small lights at this home were not turned on.\u00a0 But it is the tree – The Tree – in front of this\u00a0house\u00a0that in small part prompted my project\u00a0so I fitted Matilda with the smallest (widest angle) lens, mounted her on the old tripod and trudged off to find a suitable vantage point.<\/p>\n

The middle of the road here is often the best place to shoot the houses, and you’d think that at midnight there’d be no traffic.\u00a0 Not my luck.\u00a0\u00a0I caused a great deal of laughter from our local police when they came cruising by on patrol, clipping along at a speed that made us wonder if they were going to\u00a0stop or run me over.\u00a0 In reality, they probably just wanted to\u00a0get close quickly since from a distance and from behind I probably looked in distress as I knelt there in the road, oblivious to all but my goal of capturing the view in front of me.<\/p>\n

But fortunately for Bob’s heart it wasn’t from the road that I was able to get the daily shot I wanted:<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter.” (Robert Frost) \u00a0\u00a0 It is bitterly cold outside.\u00a0 The new-fallen snow is deep\u00a0and more is predicted to come down tomorrow,\u00a0accompanied by\u00a0even higher winds than those of yesterday’s storm and bringing with them the bonus of\u00a0negative double-digit wind-chill temperatures.\u00a0 But it is fitting since tomorrow is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}