The light...oh, the light!

Light is at a premium in December...

we all begin starving for it,

run out into it whenever it makes an appearance.

And because the sun stays so low in the sky, never even reaching the tops of the trees

at this latitude,

illumination happens - details appear - that can't be seen at any other time.

Seed heads show off their fancy petticoats.

Gotta love a plant that flowers non-stop for six months

and does THIS for the other six!

She's Clematis tangutica 'Golden Tiara'...and I adore her...

she was planted to cover a pergola & she's making quite the valiant effort.

After de-leafing themselves, the trees reveal some hidden plumage of their own...

so much lichen...I'm not sure how some of the trees continue to hold their arms up!

I grew some lichen in my window.

Not really.

I am finally learning to knit and this is a new project...lacy scarf...more like pea soup in color

than "lichen" but it has a similar wispy quality when held up to the light like this.

You knitters, don't look too close - it's ridden with  big mistakes  beginner's errors.  

The best way to learn anything, I suppose...

keep on going.

It's been a long year of learning about stitches, of all sorts.

Stitching together and stitching apart.

Remember early in the year when we were all choosing our
Word For The Year?
I chose FOCUS.
I'm not sure why.  It seemed important at the time.  Sometimes you just have to stick with a thing.

I hadn't thought about that word for a long time until I took these photos yesterday...
made me ponder...
started me thinking that if I haven't gained more focus, at the very least
I know that I've paid more attention.
And that's just fine.

I hope you're enjoying the light, too, wherever you are...