Game-changer

The sun is rising, almost tentatively, as I have my first cup this morning. A glance out the window reveals a light white dusting on the ground. As I quietly step onto my back porch, I am hit with the cold air--air that was in Canada only a few days ago. It has made a long journey across a continent, hiding all the way behind yesterday's wall of rain.

It is a pattern that will be repeated over the next few months. A part of a cycle that has been occurring for thousands and thousands of years.

The dusting is frost. It coats the grass and the unraked leaves in my corner of central Alabama. It is beautiful to me--not as lovely as the landscape whitened by snow--but this, as I said, is Alabama. We only get that visitation every few years.

This frost is our first of the year in my little corner of the State. It is a game-changer.

Cold is hard on the little things. The birds will have to work for their breakfast this morning. The whitetail deer will have to change his habits, leaving the heavier cover of the forest for the more open areas where the warmth of the sun can penetrate. The squirrels will wait until mid-morning before leaving the warmth of their leafy nests.

My dog could care less. She is snoring heavily on a blanket at the foot of my bed. Dreaming, perhaps, of chasing one of the squirrels. Or perhaps she still dreams of her lost love.

The game has changed, but it continues. It is not unexpected, after all.

Every ending a new beginning.