Welcome Home

The clouds hung low over the mountain this morning.  It was a cold night, so the house was chilly as I rolled out from under a pile of blankets and crept downstairs to put the coffee on, careful not to wake my sleeping daughter.  She slept with us last night, since we have not turned the furnace on for Fall and the house temperature sank into the 50s.  Days like this are special.  A little cold snap sends us to bed early to snuggle in the covers...extra blankets added until we are hidden under a heap of warmth.  We went to bed early, but stayed up whispering until late into the night.

I find my coffee in the old pantry and commence my morning ritual of brewing a pot while the dog is let out for her morning rounds.  Then I sit at the window and gaze up the mountain and down to the lake, always reveling in what beauty the morning brings.  I love it here on this mountain that we have just recently made our new home.  While we are new to this place, the house has been here for 200 years waiting for us to come home.  I could hear her whisper of "welcome home" the moment I set eyes on the place more than a year ago. 

The afternoon was spent wandering the woods to see what the latest storm had brought to show us.  Rushing water in the stream that runs down the hill to the lake, an amazing variety of mushrooms peeking up through the ferns on the forest floor, sweet blackberries still on the vine, and an apple tree at the edge of the woods, laden with fruit.  We picked enough to fill impromptu baskets made from our shirts and headed back up the hill to the house.  Now I sit and reflect as the smell of homemade apple crisp baking drifts through the house.  This place is filled with magic.  Welcome home, indeed.