Faith, Folklore, and Friends

We were in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg for a few days last week to enjoy all the Christmas festivities there.  On Thursday night, the Weather Channel said there was zero percent chance of precipitation.  The local news said maybe a dusting of snow.  When we got up on Friday morning, it had started to snow, and it snowed all day.  The temperature stayed around 32-34 degrees, so there was none on the roads.  It was a rare treat for us to be in and out of the snow, which was sometimes blowing like a blizzard. All these photos were taken early Saturday morning. The photos above were taken from our balcony at Mountain Loft resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  The ones below were taken on the road going from Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge.  You can see in some of the ones below that the sun was breaking through the clouds. We have been blessed to enjoy Christmas in the Smokies many times, bu...

Sonnet 97 by William Shakespeare How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December’s bareness everywhere! And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time, The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease: Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit; For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away, the very birds are mute; Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.