Two more winter photos from the South Mountain Reservation

Two more winter scenes taken in the South Mountain Reservation, this time Saturday afternoon, January 22, 2011. I love the light brown color of dead leaves still hanging from the trees. It snowed overnight on Thursday through Friday morning.

Snow has covered the ground since the Day after Christmas snowstorm here in the New York City metro area, longer than any other time since I came here in September, 2002.

The snow brings back memories of my idyllic childhood on a small dairy farm—80 acres—30 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota. I lived there through the 8th grade. The joy of these memories is that back then I knew I had a special, free life as a child, able to roam at will through the forests surrounding us, especially in the winter when the spring, summer, and fall chores of the farm were muted and I could get on my skis and just go.

Then later I spent the last few years of my working life in Fairbanks, Alaska, where once again I had the freedom to roam at will, this time in the vast Interior Alaska where the Yukon River forms an arc from the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve to the Denali National Park and Preserve.

Wandering through the South Mountain Reservation brings "memories from the corners of my mind", to borrow the phrasing from the lyrics of "Way We Were," and makes me realize how fortunate I am to have both the Reservation and the memories as I grow old.

Note: Cross posted on the Steese Review.