Winter Voices

Life in winter and in Tiny Town, Idaho continues to be quiet, and days (sometimes reassuringly and sometimes maddeningly) have become a predictable routine of walks and picture taking and blogging and occasional home improvements and fire building.

In winter that predictable routine is sitting well, although LC and I both continue to feel a little lost and aimless sometimes.

We have many plans once spring breaks that include larger home improvements and moves towards my restarting a business and camping and exploring some of the mountains that we have seen and enjoyed, so far only from a distance.

But as I look at the picture above, I am reminded that I like this quiet life in this quiet town.

The solitude of it, the beauty of the buttes and distant mountains and endless sunsets looking over endless empty land, suits my needs................

A picture of leaf-less trees in our back yard...............

In the summer our community, located in the high desert plains of SE Idaho, is enveloped in seemingly non-stop sunshine and blue sky.

Such a change from Juneau Alaska - the place I lived when I first began this blog a lifetime ago - where it once rained every day for six weeks straight and where grey skies were more common than blue skies.

The weather changes more frequently in Atomic City during the winter, and over these past long months we have seen a non-stop sequence of snow, rain, frozen trees, sunshine, warmth, freezing cold, grey, all consuming frozen mist, and wonderful blue sky.

A couple of weeks ago the day was freezing cold and outstandingly clear.

I walked with Kory through the abandoned-until-summer raceway that is located at the far end of town and snapped these few picture blind because of the glare...............

After leaving the raceway Kory and I headed towards the back of town, in no hurry to go home on a day that was seemingly designed specifically to be outside.

She would walk all day if I gave her the chance..............

A picture of my girl joyously running on BLM land..............

On one more sunny day we walked again, this time late in the afternoon as the sun was beginning to set in the west.

The world around us looks different all the time, depending on the weather and the time of day.

I see beauty here that I'm not sure others who live here see.

Part of that relates to the quiet, silent, solitude of the place that feels like a safe blanket that I can wrap tightly around my shoulders.

Part of that relates to the fact that most simply drive by without seeing, while the pace of walking is more conducive to seeing and appreciating the nooks and crannies and hidden places that typically go un-noticed.

And part of it is that when the sky is relentlessly blue and the ground is perfectly white and the sun is setting over Cedar Butte and Big Butte, Atomic City is a very lovely place.

My favorite time of year here.  

Actually my favorite time of year anywhere..............

This morning, as I was getting geared up to walk on BLM land with Kory, I looked out of my kitchen window and saw a deer looking back at me.

She was standing right in front of me staring, and when I looked beyond her I saw others in the herd grazing across the road..............

Deer crossing over the road in front of us during our sunset walk............

Pictures taken in the back yard before a walk.

They were all taken a few days ago on a grey, sunless, lightless, frozen morning.............

I smile every time I look at our ski picnic table.

We used salvaged lumber for the base and the entire table top is skis.

I love that thing.  

It is whimsical and large and sturdy and I am looking forward to using it a lot when the weather finally breaks in the spring..............

My favorite, unused, unloved, long forgotten log structure and attached chicken coop, located on a side street in town..............

Deer grazing on BLM land............

The Twin Buttes always look red for about 30 minutes on sunset evenings...............

There weren't a lot of Christmas decorations outside people's homes during the holidays.

But one evening while LC, Kory and I were walking, we stopped to chat with an elderly man who was working outside his home.

He had filled his pine trees in the front yard with lights, and in a small garden section beside the trees were these two bird houses............

And he had a whimsical face hanging from the fence.

A friendly and open face on a freezing cold evening..................

Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almost hides the body,
and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day............Virginia Woolf, Night and Day