A Year of Gratitude – February 29, 2024
My gratitude was frozen and waiting for me this morning. After days of warmer than usual weather, the wind howled all night and blew in cold weather. When I headed out the door to do my morning round of farm chores, it was barely over 20 degrees.
For February in New England, that isn’t unusual. Yet it felt so terribly cold after a few days with abundant sunshine and 50 degree warmth. I was grumbling to myself about the cold, about the blustery wind blowing cold air in my face while I tromped around doing my chores.
The grumbling didn’t help. I knew it wouldn’t. The air was still cold. The wind was still blowing. The fence post the 50 mile per hour overnight winds had blown down was still laying on the ground. Grumbling didn’t change a thing. It just made me grumbly.
As I started to work on accepting the unwelcome cold weather and finishing up my chores so that I could retreat into the warmth of the farmhouse, I looked down. I saw these strawberry leaves covered in frost. As much as I wanted to hurry back inside, I stopped for a minute to look at the bright green leaves among pine needles and dried leaves from the fall.
As much as I didn’t appreciate the cold, I had to admit that this frost was beautiful to look at. Fortunately, the sun would help these tender leaves to warm up and shed the frost before it had time to do much damage. At least that was my hope.
I snapped a quick photo to share with you and braced myself for the wind blowing right in my face as I headed back to the door to the mudroom of the farmhouse. I was so happy to be inside, to see that the pellet stove was roaring, sending out warm air to greet me.
Penny Lane was also there to greet me. She wagged her tail at me, happy to see me. She knew that I would be headed into the kitchen to make coffee and sourdough toast. More importantly, she knows that I will share a bit of my toast with her. And I did.
After we had finished my toast, we snuggled underneath the wool blanket on the couch in the parlor. She was asleep in minutes, snoring softly. I sipped my coffee, grateful for the warmth on my hands as it held the mug. As I looked out the window at the bright sunshine, I started dreaming of the garden, of ripe red strawberries, and of warm spring days ahead. I have the frosty leaves in the garden to thank for that.
I hope that your day gave you something beautiful to see and that you were able to enjoy it.
This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.