Our first snow on Thorson Ridge. At just under 3000 feet elevation, our weather here in the Sierra foothills is more like Camino than Pleasant Valley just south.

Snow prompts me to think of renewal and new birth, appropriate for this Advent season. New beginnings can start any day; however, they must be quickly acted upon while things are fresh and clean.
En una noche obscura
Con ansiasen amores inflamada o dichosa uentura
sali sin ser notada
Estando ya mi casa sosegada
Once in the dark of night
when love burned bright with yearning,
I arose (0 windfall of delight!)
and how I left none knows — dead to the world my house in deep repose;
(from “The Poems of St John of the Cross” original Spanish Texts and English Translations by John Frederick Nims, 3rd Edition 1995; University of Chicago Press)