Located in the basement of our home, the BRC workshop faces east across one of the three lakes in our neighborhood. The shoreline behind our house is frequented by deer, foxes, raccoons, and the occasional rambling coyote. Grandkids catch hefty catfish from our dock in the summertime. This winter, sunrises have been a frequent spectacle of meteorology. By November, wide temperature swings brought freeze-thaw cycles to our lake while intermittently crystalizing its icy monochrome surface. It is said that Mark Twain advised, “If you don’t like the weather in Missouri, wait five minutes.”
In early December, sunrises were streaked with feathery red-orange hues that mirrored themselves on the waters and frequently predicted impending snow flurries.
Later in December, the Heartland was visited by angry crimson skies (below) heralding the arrival of an historic bomb-cyclone storm that pummeled the landscape and all who lived here.
When the colossal storm finally abated, a gold-striped horizon and windswept morning sky (below) emerged at sunup to reveal that about 600 Canada geese had been driven south by the storm and taken refuge on our frozen neighborhood lakes.
Home owners began to shoot bottle rockets at the noisy flock to hasten its departure, but to no avail whatsoever. Only the arrival of a hungry coyote stealthily prowling the shorelines was sufficiently alarming to alert the geese to a menacing predator, and the giant flock of birds promptly took wing and fled en masse to faraway environs. As dawn unfolds daily, we are not infrequently treated to a “Giverny in the Sky” alluding to Monet`s serial paintings of his pond in France visited by the BRC wife and her sister a few years ago.
From the BRC: Have a sunny and Happy Valentine`s Day.
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