‘earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone…’

One does wonder if Rossetti was visiting Yorkshire or the Lowlands when she wrote it.  Because, English Decembers do not lend themselves to iron or stone.  Mud rather.  Which is a good deal less poetic!

This occasioned by contemplating today’s scene and my horse’s ever expanding mudscape, thanks to the very English December we are having.

Still, it is in its own way a lovely day, the fog in the woods and the chickadees just starting up down in the pines. No complaints.  (besides, I’ll take almost anything over ice)