Coming home from work last night I had to stop and take some photos.
Check out that moon! It was as big and beautiful as it could be.
It looked good above the rocky ridge.
And it looked even better shining through the trees. It lit up the countryside like a giant night-light and the snow reflected every bit of light. I really didn’t need my headlights but I left them on anyway. Around here people tend to think you’re a little strange or stealing cattle if you drive around with your lights off and I’d really hate to get shot for taking a few pictures!
That would tend to ruin my evening.
Don’t you just love new tracks in the snow? I made the first tracks in the morning and the neighbors added to them all day. We only have 4 inches of snow on the ground but it’s wonderful powdery fluff. Thank goodness there’s no wind or it would be in Nebraska by morning.
When I was in grade school, my parents purchased land in the Black Hills. Where I grew up in the eastern end of the state, there were very few trees and the only thing to stop the wind was a barb wire fence so needless to say, we were amazed at the way it snowed in the mountains – most of the time it falls straight down!!! I know that may not sound like much to some people but to a kid who was born and raised on the prairie that’s just short of being a miracle straight from Heaven above. In fact, my Dad was so impressed after seeing the first snowfall that he went out with the tape measure to see how much was stacked on top of the fence post – 8 inches!!! In eastern SD, snow is usually stuck to the side of the post or compacted into a drifts so dense that cattle walk over the tops of the fence and wander down the roads.
The cows out here have to jump the fence if they want to walk down the roads. Poor things.
There is a Native American proverb that says:
We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.
Unfortunately, these pristine white tracks will not be my legacy. That’s OK. Next spring there will be deep, muddy tracks instead and I’m pretty sure that’s how I’ll be remembered, the one wallowing knee-deep in mud.
That’s a little more my style.
But mud is at least 3 months away so for now I’ll just take more snow pictures.
I tried a few shots with very slow shutter speeds and got some interesting ‘moon tracks’.
I call this one ‘Space Ship Boogy’
This one I call ‘Neon Moon’.
I’m not sure what these shots say about me other than I couldn’t hold a camera still to save my soul. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll dig out the tripod before this great full moon disappears for another month.
Hope you’re enjoying the moon and all the Christmas lights!
RanchDaze 
