Today I am thankful for easy access to wide open space where I can clear my mind and soothe my soul. I am thankful for the sixty minutes I had all to myself, with no one else around except some magpies and a coyote. I am thankful for the snow- and ice-crusted splendor (such as these images provided to morgueFile.com by people who had the foresight to bring along a camera):

I am thankful for the mystery of animal tracks in the snow:

I am thankful for the delight of seemingly random patterns in the snow (although I figured out the ones I saw were made by small clods of earth coming loose from the hillside and rolling down the slope to stop in dark blobs at the end of their dainty trails, an image I REALLY wished I could document with a camera):

I am thankful for delicate, lacy sheets of ice melting in the sun:

It’s been a tough week in a whole lot of ways, and so when I saw a cluster of mullein stalks standing ramrod straight in the snow, something about the weak shadows they cast made me teary; it was like some lonely roll-call. Lonely yet courageous. In any case, today I am thankful for Nature’s refuge that I found via my snowshoes.