Spring Already?

Has this not been the most mild Utah winter? Everyone's status on facebook is something about SPRING TIME IS HERE! or HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING! and all I keep wondering is 'when is winter going to start?', or 'where did winter go?'. The season got over way too quickly. I mean, the drive-way at my little orchard shack only got shoveled ONCE all winter long, it's pathetic. 

I hate spring time. It's muddy and moody.

Winter is so pretty and cozy.

Luckily, while it hasn't been all that snowy in the valley - I've been able to enjoy it up in the mountains (which is where I'd rather be enjoying). Wintertime in the mountains is my favorite. Quiet, soft, sparkly, white, clean, cozy, solitaire. I love branches draped with snow. And it's easy to spot life moving along up there by tracks made by animals in the snow. It's awesome. Mountain/forest life amazes me in it's preparation for winter. Just walking around on my snowshoes I get inspired to be prepared in my own life.

I love the idea of gathering, storing, and making things to help you get through the winter. In the wintertime all the hard work of preparing should be over, and you just get to sit and be cozy enjoying the fruits of your labor. Maybe not so much in 2011 - but I love the idea of it anyways.

I am constantly torn between my love for technology (like iphones apps that tell you the name of the mountains around you and fruit ninja) and my loyalty to an old simple way of life (where friends stop by unexpectedly and leave notes on the door).

My perfect life would be a busy business life down here in the valley, and a cabin to live in most of the winter.

So I guess I shouldn't complain, it's nice being business/public relations/city meetings/drafting Whitney during the day, and then going home to my quilting/reading/hot tea/bubble bath/biking orchard shack at night (and pretend it's a cabin in the mountains).

Over this last weekend we went to Kamas again to spend time at the Dewey cabin and soak up the last bit of winter. On main street (or the only street) in Kamas I found a pretty cool painting of a mountain winter scene (complete with an elk/deer, can't tell which - I am not a hunter) at a thrift store ran by some fellow Samakians. Can't wait till it's hanging up in the shack - making my make-believe-mountain-cabin more complete.

(picture mckay took last year at utley's condo in elk meadows)