The past few weeks have been busy with getting ready for the upcoming show at the Gruppe Gallery and being out-of-doors enjoying some February sunshine. I finally downloaded images from both cameras and felt that together they’d make a good collection of “bits and bobs.”

The Valentine Phantom was back in Montpelier! Every year for much of the time we have been living here, an unknown person or persons—at least not know to many!—hangs hundreds of hearts around town early on the 14th. We wake up to a sight that reminds us the world is not entirely bleak, that we live in a pretty fabulous community, and that for at least one day a year, we can celebrate loving each other.

This year we enjoyed the added delight of the art of many young people “who helped the Valentines Bandit” as one group of proud 3rd graders told us.

It was also a delight to spend the day with my Valentine who has been away for most of the past seven weeks helping her 98-year old dad successfully transition into assisted living. Both dad and daughter are inspirations! Liz posed in front of her favorite store in Montpelier, the Yarn Shop!

As is often the case in February, the sun has been glorious and the snow too, now several feet deep in most places. My walking pals, Rob and Michael, and I  put on snowshoes and walked to Chickering Bog, a special place anytime of year and more accessible when frozen. The contrast of shadows of Tamarack on bright snow and remaining leaves of Beech were beautiful in the sunshine.

And just a few miles out of the “city” the world quickly turns to countryside, and it is easy to look at old farms and imagine time warping into the early 1900s.

And in a world that lately seems so predictably unpredictable, here in the Northern Hemisphere the sun rises earlier every morning and swings more to the south until—right on schedule—it comes back in our kitchen window. With more and more of us glued to small phone screens and moving more often than in the past, such events are less often noticed and appreciated. The sight of the early sunshine on my old Chinese tea jar and a wooden kitchen mallet is a powerful reminder to me of what is real.

As I said, we couple weeks full of bits and bobs, and a wonderful time of year to be living in Central Vermont.

 

 

 

17 Feb This entry was published on February 17, 2018 at 10:22 am. It’s filed under John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Leaves, People, Photograph, Sunrise, Vermont, Winter and tagged Chickering Bog, February, Gruppe Gallery, John Snell, Montpelier, Valentine's Day, Vermont, www.johnsnell.photography. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.