On all but the foggiest of days, I enjoy a view of the San Juan Islands glowing across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Today is a sight I have never see: a dark cloud hovers overhead, casting the water in deepest shadows, while far away, the islands shimmer in late day sunlight. This reveals the full coat of snow that has accumulated and makes me wish I was up there exploring the many picturesque coves with my camera. Instead, what I can catch with my telephoto lens will have to suffice.

San Juan Islands covered in snow; click to enlarge

To pass the dark month of December with an old friend, here is today’s green meditation, courtesy of Henry Thoreau.

I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and had dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.

Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.