Circles in the Snow

 The earth is a circle. The sun is a circle. Moons, and stars, and planets, too.

 The great journey that the earth makes around the sun—at 67,000 miles per hour!—is a nearly perfect circle. We can't feel the spinning motion, but we observe it in seasons of warmth and cold, as days grow shorter or longer. Light yields to darkness; darkness yields to light.

 At the close of 2013, we’re completing yet another one of those great spherical journeys known as a year. It's strange to think that “time” is nothing more than our circle (the earth) making a circle (its orbit) around another circle (the sun). It can be dizzying, all this spinning in circles.

 I only come to the Wildflower Reserve at Raccoon Creek during deer season, because the whole big area is off limits to hunting.  Of course, there are no wildflowers to be seen at this time of year, but if you go on a weekday morning, it's worth a drive from the outer suburbs.  I had all the trails to myself except for a gorgeous red cardinal who chose not to be photographed.

Very soon, I'll be doing my annual Winter Pilgrimage to the Allegheny National Forest.  I'm already planning the treks for each day.  There's nothing in all this world quite like the wintry woods.  Toward the end of the TV series "Breaking Bad," the main character is given a one-room cabin in the winter woods of New Hampshire.  It's a hideout where he can spend his last days, dying of cancer and avoiding the police.  The place is stocked with firewood, canned food, and drinking water.  But the fool steals a car and sneaks back to New Mexico.  Talk about jettisoning a dream!  This last photo is of the winter forest from the porch of the historic-but-decrepit cabin that Cy Hungerford once owned.