Covering Sins

If it is going to be cold, there might as well be snow.

You can agree with this or disagree, that is fine.  But, in Iowa, there will be snow - and not always when you expect it.  This picture was taken after a surprise October snow this past year.  It did provide for some interesting photo opportunities because there was more foliage remaining on plants to catch the snow and give us different textures to record.

If you live in town, you might appreciate the snow because it covers up some of the muddy, dirty 'old' snow and the unattractive brown lawns.  Even if you are not fond of snow, you will probably admit that a new snowfall has a certain beauty to it.  Part of that beauty is the ability of a good snow to cover up our sins so that we might, for a moment, believe that things in this world can be right again.

On the farm, the blanket of snow actually does cover a few of our 'farming sins,' if you will allow me the use of that expression.  You see, once we enter the Fall months, green things do not grow as quickly to cover up ground we have scarred.  And, if you have a wet Fall, as we did this past year, it is pretty easy to tear things up with the tractor without meaning to.  The snow makes those areas pristine again - if only for a while.

The blanket covers a multitude of other 'sins' as well.  The bed of daikons that never sized up and were not harvested is now covered in white.  The stack of stakes we told ourselves needed to be moved for the past six weeks looks like a pile of white stuff and nothing more.  The bare patch in that pasture we wanted to rehabilitate but couldn't because it stayed too wet is now white, just like the rest of the pasture.  The remnants of hose and drip tape that should be cleaned up is... well, it's still out here somewhere.  Oops.

Even the paths that we commonly walk as we do chores every day are not so evident, until we make that first walk in the new snow to complete the next set of chores.  Well, I did admit to being a sinner, so that might be why I am willing to accept another snow.