Magical Misty Morning

It was the first morning sunshine in quite a number of days brave enough to poke its golden head from behind heavy clouds of rain.  But in determined competition, the fog was moving in from the bay and from the large arm of the river and catching like a wispy net in the tops of the trees.  It was carefully covering the sun with its veil.  This fog was masking the first warmth I had felt in days.  I hurried down to the dock to see if I could catch the last of the geese swimming out into the river on the far shore and found my feet sliding ever so dangerously on the glistening frost on the dock when I arrived...our first real frost of the year.

The glassy surface of the water was dotted with white confetti-like down from the prior nights goose gathering.  It looked like the remnants of a very joyful party.  The geese appeared almost magical as the early angle of the sun highlighted their white behinds in crystal light reflected on the mirror of still blue-gray water.  In contrast they seemed also to hang in some gray ethereal space.  The far shore was almost invisible, only a smudged charcoal line.  The distant flocks of water birds coasting out to the river were ghostlike.  These geese mimicked the mood of stillness that was waiting for the sun to pierce through by making very little noise as they floated slowly away.

Such magical moods do not last long.  Fog sweeps in, and then, within the hour, is removed and the bright winter day is exposed.  (Click on the photos for some magic.)