Well, it was cold today and it’s even colder tonight. Had given up on the snowflakes but late afternoon the tiny white flakes came down and dusted the ground and the roof tops on my street. I sat in the quiet of the lady den and watched the snowflakes gather on the bamboo leaves, transferring my yard into a winter wonderland. Penelope and Kat left little paw prints everywhere they walked. The magnolia leaves were so pretty with the snow resting on them. The leaves looked like beautiful dark green ceramic dishes filled with crystals. Meant to take a photo of the magnolias but didn’t have my camera in my pocket.

I have really enjoyed the song birds today. They were furiously coming to the feeders, occasionally looking up in the sky, watching the snow fall, waiting patiently on top of the bird feeder poles for a perch to become available. I kept thinking, “Table for one, please.” It’s so funny to think the little song birds are really dinosaurs. You got a dinosaur obsessed child maybe you can turn them into a bird watcher. Research says birds are “the only surviving lineage of dinosaurs that made it through the great extinction 66 million years ago.”

Bird watching is great for your mental and emotional health. There are 48 million bird watchers in the United States. I’m proud to be one of the 48 million. Nothing cheers me up more than watching the birds on the feeders and listening to their songs. I’ve pretty much got all the bird identifications down so now I’m trying to learn their songs. I call all the little wrens, Wren. Can’t tell them apart but they are the opera singers perched on the scuppernong vines around the porch.

Woke up in the middle of the night last night and immediately thought of dirt roads — the beauty of an old dirt road. “Sometimes you just got to find an old dirt road and go where it takes you.” I love this anonymous quote. Seems funny that something as simple as a road of packed dirt could hold so many memories. You drive slower on a dirt road and observe the world as it passes. As a teenager, a dirt road was a place to park and make out. My high school boyfriend lived on a dirt road. Many happy high school memories with him on his dirt road.

The last time I wandered around the farm and walked a dirt road was with Chief when we were Christmas tree hunting several years ago. The first time Chief and I walked the dirt roads at the farm we wandered around in one of the old barns. We always thought Thomas was conceived in that barn. Chief and I came home from our honeymoon down a dirt road in the woods. We drove down that road for 13 years till his mother gave us his childhood home. Our three children came home from the hospital as newborns down that dirt road. We have countless family photos posed on that dirt road.

Years ago Chief’s sister’s grandchildren from Florida were visiting in the summer and I brought them to Roanoke for the day. They had never ridden down a dirt road! I took them up to the farm to vet brother’s house. They loved riding down the dirt road driveway, such a pretty drive with wood ferns and a small creek. Chief and I got a good laugh about all their comments. The youngest one, now all grown up, loves to take a dirt road to no where. She takes beautiful photos of her dirt road travels.

Every time I drive down the dirt road to my baby brother’s house, I remember picking huckleberries along one side of the road with my daddy. The berries made delicious pies. I glance at the other side of the road and remembe burying our family yard dog Okami on my youngest son’s farm land. And all those rides down the farm’s dirt roads with my baby brother in the back of daddy’s pickup truck.

And I remember the time daddy took me with him to gather up the cows who had gotten out of the fenced pasture. He had me stand in the middle of the dirt road with my arms outstretched near the pasture gate. He herds the cows down the road in his truck, straight towards me. I was scared to death, actually I was petrified, when I saw them running towards me but soon as they got close to me the cows turned and went through the gate. When the dust cleared I could see Daddy laughing. Daddy knew I was scared and got a good chuckle from the look on my face. Funny, though, I have no memories of mama on those dirt roads. Guess she was a city girl. All those memories travel down a dirt road in my heart.

Scripture in Jeremiah says, “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” Jesus walked 15,000 miles down the dirt roads of his travels.

Life is a dirt road. You drive slower on a dirt road and observe the world as it passes. Sometimes it’s hard packed and fast, sometimes it’s muddy and slippery. Other times it’s full of bumps and rocks. We have to learn to navigate, letting God choose which fork to travel. When we’re young we go down that dirt road wide open with the wind on our face. As we age, we slow down and watch life push us down different paths. When we’re old, we choose a slower dirt road and memories in our hearts make for peaceful travels. Remember our roads are about the journeys, not the destinations.

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” — John Muir