It was one of those mornings I would really have rather spent tramping around in the woods and fields with my camera, enjoying the last of the snow and a bright dawn. There was a beautiful deposit of hoar frost on nearly everything — even our fence. As I trudged towards my car, I stopped to photograph the top of a fence post. Spikes of ice crystals had formed along every ridge in the wood and around a staple that rode across the grain. As I drove cross-country I sighed at the beauty of a field where dry grass and thistle stems and pods still stood, having survived the winter's crush. They were outlined in frost now lit from behind by the rising sun. Soon the scene would be changed and the magic gone as that same sun would melt the frosty coat away. I, however, had to go to work. No stopping for a stroll through the dream landscape made by a winter's night. Miles to go, and promises to keep.