It took us almost two hours to dig our way to the Pole Barn, the snow around the farmhouse is the highest I’ve ever seen snow, there are many places where it is two or three feet high. We dug a path to the waterer, to the feeder, we put hay out in the barn, we shoveled out the chicken roost, Red was heroic plowing through snow a lot higher than he is. I took an hour’s worth of great photos, shots of Red, the sheep, the snow, some really good stuff and when I got into the house and downloaded it to the computer the power went out – it went out last night as well for some hours – and the photos were damaged in transmission, this is the only one that survived.

For me, there are few worse feelings than when that happens, I had just shown Maria the photos I was excited to put them up, do an album of our amazing morning, but I saw they are all gone. This is always a challenge for me, to remember that this is life, and the joy of photography is that there is always another day, another storm, another photo. We cannot control life, big storms like this disrupt things, I will put on my boots and go at it again, find something new and different to photograph. My friend George Forss just called and said he was out walking in the storm and got a great photo of a dog with a sweater taking a dump. I’m not sure if he’ll print it or not, today is Valentine’s Day and George and I were taking our lovers out to the Round House, but I doubt they will be able to open this morning. And our cars are buried under a ton of snow, we can hardly see them.

A snow plow took down our mailbox, I can hardly blame them, the snow is so high and thick, I appreciate the work they do. So I learn again and again about life, it is not controllable, it has it’s own mission, it’s own plan. Grace comes when we accept it. Sorry about those photos, though, you don’t get too many storms like this. And we are lucky..for now we have power, we are filling the tubs with water, loading up buckets in case it goes out again. The animals will not be out of that pole barn for a few days.