Pages

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Bitter Sweet


After the leaves have left the trees and before snow blankets the ground there’s a time the landscape goes bare naked. It’s the season when pale light’s filtered through thin clouds to softly illuminate every twig and tuft of grass. Frost puts a hard grip on the surface of everything, including stone. Stones that were loose and free a week ago are now clutched tight to the soil. Picking one off the ground tears up a piece of frozen earth along with it. An added labor is added to the work of dry stone walling. Clumps of frozen dirt must be hammered and chipped from it before the stone can be laid. December is a transitional time in the life of a seasonal worker. It can be difficult to switch gears and move on to the next pursuit. Change is hard but it exposes new aspects of life. December is bittersweet.  

2 comments:

  1. Is there a reason that the clients left this structure to the wild? Has it been left overgrown on purpose? Dean.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Dean,
    I think it's a case of the caretaker not feeling like lugging his "wipper snipper" to that area of the property each week. Every few years someone gets over there with loppers to cut out the heavy growth.
    Dan

    ReplyDelete

I welcome your comments. Moderation is turned on only to avoid spam.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.