Cold, Silent, Early Morning

Those of you that live in California know that lately it has been very very cold.  The extreme cold and fear of bursting water faucets got me out of my warm bed much earlier than is normal for a lazy old work at home kind of guy like me.  Fortunately, the hard freeze did not get to any of my pipes and I did not find the expected frozen plumes of water below each broken faucet.  What I did find was a wonderfully still and silent winter morning.  The only sound was the crackling of the frozen ground beneath each step I took.  Had I not risen early this morning it would have come and gone with every tiny crystal of evidence melted away leaving no trace of the beautiful morning that was.

It was 19 degrees outside according to my rear yard thermometer.  I found a miniature frozen world atop the stone gate post and tiny ice crystals had formed on the the many metal garden object.

The pure white crystals stood like tiny hairs and shined as if lit by a light.  Even the metal bug appeared to have been stopped in his tracks by the freezing cold.

I did eventually return to the warmth of my bed happy knowing that the cold had done no damage and that I had experienced such a beautiful morning.  Now I waited for the sun to rise higher in the sky and warm the day.

I bet Ranndy Pina has seen a thousand beautiful mornings.