this life i live in this verdant hinterland.

********

it's time for me to come clean:

i do not like hot summer weather.

people ask me all the time

"how can you sleep when the sun is shining and the weather is so beautiful??"

well. it's like this:

i'm not really a summer person.

i'm not really a sun worshipper.

[plus, this: i'm a committed night-shift worker. i sleep during the day.]

now, give me some snow and i'm happy-happy-all-excited.

just ask mister pencilfox.

the moment the first snow hits the ground, i'm checking my winter gear,

pulling all my mittens and toques and longjohns out of the drawers,

and i cannot wait to strap on snowshoes and head out into

the wondrous snowglobe hinterland of pencilfox acres.

however.

however.

upon waking yesterday evening, i talked myself into

carrying a cup of tea

and the little red camera

out to the newly-lay'd firepit area.

as soon as i walked out the door, a blast of heat hit me,

like i was entering a dry sauna.

but that's not the only thing that affected my senses:

the heat highly-enhanced the oily sweet scent of the birch tree buds,

and the verdant fragrance was so very pungent and spicy
[in a good way]

to my olfactory sensors.

my brain actually felt green and i pondered and pensed for quite awhile

on how i used to be blue and now i am green.

you see, something happened to me when i moved to alaska,

and green became a favourite colour.

all shades of green:

grass and moss and birch leaf and spruce needle.

maybe it's because there's so little green time in alaska,

given that our winters can last seven to eight months,

depending on the hands that mother nature deals us in the card game of life.

as much as i love winter,

i can certainly appreciate "not-winter" for the short time that

it beckons me outdoors.

****

life is grand and oh-so-sweet.

********