Snow or get off the pot!

Everywhere I went today, all I heard was “Christmas is one month away from today!”. Sure doesn’t feel like it here in Saskatchewan. Just last week we had record-breaking temperatures for a couple of days, hitting 13 degrees celcius. It’s not that warm today, but it certainly doesn’t feel like the last week of November usually feels on the prairies. It seems to me that once Halloween arrives we have a light blanket of snow and by the last week of November there’s usually a couple inches of snow on the ground. I can’t honestly say I love winter. It is a beautiful time of year, but it’s COLD and miserable some days. Most days I can appreciate the beauty that a sunny winter day brings. The suns rays sparkle off the snow like millions of tiny diamonds and after a foggy night the hoar frost calls me to grab my camera, get outside and take some pictures of winter beauty.

As of today, I can say I’m READY FOR IT TO SNOW! It looks like early spring with everything so gray and brown and the colors are depressing. A dusting of snow would cover up the blah and make it beautiful - and at least seem like Christmas is one month away. I am, however, enjoying getting my Christmas shopping done without having to worry about driving on icy streets, scraping ice and snow off my windshield, and my fresh fruits and veggies getting frostbite on the trip from the store door to the vehicle! 

I don’t have much Christmas shopping left, but the Christmas tree and Christmas decorations for the house haven’t been put up yet. The plan is to do that this weekend. After I dust ;)  

I’d much rather be waiting for spring to arrive so I can venture out on photography expeditions, enjoy camping, swimming, and lots of lake time. And to be back in shorts and tank tops instead of scarves and gloves (just realized that sounds like I don’t wear anything but scarves and gloves!). I needed to get a little bit of color into my blog today and wildflowers, or any flowers for that matter, are the way to go. I love taking shots of flowers in my garden but I really enjoy taking photos of flowers in the wild. I often come back to the campsite and spend an hour and a half just looking back at the photos on my camera….deleting blurry shots and writing notes in my photo journal as to where all the photos were taken so I’ll remember when it comes time to scrapbook them or just print them out for an album.

The photo at the top of today’s entry was one of many I took of wildflowers on our summer holiday at Waterton International Peace Park. Thanks to my journal entries and a handy reference book I was able to identify most of the wildflowers I took photos of. Today with the gray sky I need to see a little bit of sunshine and summer. If Mother Nature would just bring us some snow I could really get into the decorating spirit, maybe even listen to my extensive collection of Christmas CD’s!

Spring is now only 4-5 months away so I won’t have to wait long for my wildflowers. How long will we have to wait for snow though?!