Walking Iten's Acres: Snow White January 4, 2013

Snow white. The pristine beauty of the fresh snow is gone. There are footsteps everywhere. The footsteps of the COBG and other humans, the outlaw gang, the creatures of the wild--no dwarfs'. They all have a story to tell. The deer have been everywhere--even up by the house. Perhaps they are always there, hiding in the shadows, ghosts of the gray duskiness. But now the snow has given their intrusions away. I'll be watching my enemies.
The Acres are alive with bird activity. The feeder on Mom's doorwindow attracts them. A buffet. They are everywhere. Flighty. Noisy. Gorgeous. I guess the feeder makes them feel safe, wanted. It's a bird welcome mat. Even an occasional visit from a neighborhood cat is ignored. Homesteader straining to find a way through the doorwindow is mocked by their indifference to her longing. Bonnie, too, brings no change in their behavior. It's a mutual "you make no difference to me" relationship. The only thing that brings stillness and silence is a hawk visit. He is a bird feeder as well.
The flower beds are hidden under the whiteness. The pine trees still wear their white skirts. The pond is a skating rink for the dogs. The tree branches glisten in the morning frost. Twigs of tinsel, laden with captured stars from the night before. I love the beauty of a snowscape.
Rumor has it that a thaw is coming. Rain even. Thunder. I have mixed emotions. I will allow it if it promises to snow again before the cold returns. The good the thaw will bring is that if there is a streak of good weather, then my sisters will come up to surprise Mom on her 99th birthday in a couple weeks. Shhhh. Surprise. Tell no one. Yes, I will hurt you.
Can you imagine all my mom has seen since 1914 until today? Though her short term memory is all but lost, she can remember so much from her treasure store of lifetime moments. As an almost five-year-old she watched from the window of her family's flat in Wellston, Missouri, as the world celebrated the end of The Great War. She watched as wreaths went up on the doors of the homes across the way as the great flu epidemic swept the neighborhood more deadly than the war itself. Lighting the lamps. Cobblestone streets. Horse drawn buggies. Walking to market every day to buy your next meal to be prepared in the kitchen. Her dad's love-hate relationship with the family cat. So many memories time has been unable to steal or even dim. She is a living history book of the ordinary moments of life that make it so extraordinary. And now she sits in her red chair, the Homesteader contentedly sleeping on the back of the chair behind her, her life limited to the vision she has through the doorwindow looking out at the front of Iten's Acres. Yet, she is content. Satisfied with the beauty she can she. She has never met a day she couldn't love.