This Blue Ridge mountain foothill range, here from the east at a bit of distance, is what you see in all my photos of my back yard.

It’s the longest, lightest day of the year, and a lovely one at that. I spent the afternoon processing strawberries picked yesterday in Nelson County.

Summer fruits are the best, but you know what’s even better? Strawberry shortcake, baking in the oven right now. And the chickens definitely enjoyed the strawberry trimmings!

I’ve got a couple of growlers of Devil’s Backbone in the fridge and new friends on the way with fried chicken. We’re doing this Solstice up right with a good old-fashioned porch party on this beautiful evening.

Whatever you’re up to today, I hope you get a chance to celebrate the Solstice. And lest the sun hog all the astronomical attention, don’t forget to check out this weekend’s Supermoon!

December 17, 8:30 a.m. Headed to work the morning after the season’s first measurable snow.

April 21, 7:28 p.m.

Driving home from town in the fog, after a thunderstorm.

April 18, 7:42 p.m.

Driving home from the farm after a beautiful day spent working on the back porch ceiling and doing what I hope is the final trim sanding. The last time I drove home this way, it was on thick ice and this pasture looked like this.

Drove up to the house late tonight in the warm dark rain. Toads of all sizes hopped in my headlights and I wove to avoid the stiff-shouldered crawlers and the spread-eagled splat. It was an amphibian slalom for my shock-worn death wagon.

On the porch, in the moist pitch dark, their voices rose around me. I have not heard that sound in oh so long.

I think every toad in the county was on the road tonight. I started counting but I ran out of numbers. Little tiny ones that mirrored raindrops when they jumped and big orange ones the color of the mud from which they crawled. Where are they all going, these squat, hormone-driven, headlight-facing little creatures compelled out of the snow and into the spring?

March 3, 6:14 p.m. Runaway calf beside the road. This little baby would have looked cute with the Bonafide brand on her butt, and I’ve always wanted to add cattle rustler to my resume. Too bad she wouldn’t fit in my station wagon.

February 24, 6:34 p.m.

Took a different way home tonight, along a dirt road still thick with ice and snow. I realize now that my paint color selection for the house was heavily influenced by the evening winter blues around these mountains.

February 17, 6:29 p.m. Leaving the house after sunset.

For all the hassle and frustration our record snowy winter has brought, it has also brought the most beautiful winter scenery in many years of memory. I suspect that I am seeing the rural landscape with new eyes after living in a city for the past five years, but in some way I feel this winter has been extraordinary. The snow has given me a new appreciation for a color palette I didn’t until now find appealing: gray lavender winter sunsets reflecting off icy blue white, a landscape that glows without heat.