Sounds of winter on the farm

It is amazing how quiet winter is.  Everything is sleeping.  Animals are hibernating, bugs too.  The resident robins are even quiet leaving just the sound of the wind when it blows and the falling snow.  Tonight I stood out on the deck and watched it snow. 

There was no sound.  Last night as the snow started, there was a sound of snow pellets hitting the tarp covering the wood pile.  A gentle tapping as each little snow ball bounced on the tarp. 

Today I was able to capture some of the beauty that the night hides under a veil of darkness as it works its magic.

Tonight there is no sound.  No tapping.  No wind whispering through the trees.  No birds cooing as they huddle in the evergreens.  Tonight there is no sound.  Just darkness pierced only by the light on the house that illuminates the deck and wood pile.  Without the light there is just darkness.  Without the light there is coldness in the dark as Mother Nature quietly paints the countryside in a blanket of white to be unveiled as a new treasure with the morning sunrise. 

The snow sparkles like diamonds falling quietly to the ground only to melt away into the ground, not to be seen as a sparkling diamond again.  It is almost like looking up into the summer sky at the multitude of stars sparkling in their constellations.

So ends another month and the start of the new year.  What a wondrous way to bring January quietly to a close.