Snow gently falling, catching onto the evergreen trees and slowly covering the bland ground…ponds freezing over…fireplaces burning bright and warm.

I love looking at pictures of winter and imagining the aesthetic of a pleasant snowfall—ice skating, snowy parks, cozy knitted woolens, even shoveling sounds appealing in the beginning of the season.

But after a few months of driving in snow, slipping on ice and falling in poo (yes, that happened), and bundling up until I look like the little brother in A Christmas Story every time I step out the door, the shine has worn off and I’m wishing for winter to end and dreaming of spring.

Well, it’s not spring here in the Midwest and it won’t be for some time yet.

So, I thought I’d look through my photos that I took this winter and share some of the beauty of the season.

The ducks never seem to mind the snow!  But do not expect to see any chicken photos in this post.  They stay inside their covered run.

Hadley the Great Pyrenees pup loves the snow.  Less than a year old still,  this is her first winter.  She’s super fluffy with her thick white winter coat and seems to thrive in what I consider to be rather chilly weather.  She has a grand old time playing in the snow too.  While she’s in mid-run, she puts her face down to the ground and scoops up fresh snow for a drink on the go.  So far we haven’t had any predator problems, thanks to her watchfulness.  In her spare time, Hadley likes to go sledding with the kids.

The sheep have no problem sitting outside of their shelter during the snowfalls.  The snow just collects on their backs, and doesn’t even melt off because their bodies are so insulated by wool.  I’m the one who brushes it off if there’s one too many inches piled up on top of them.  There was one day when Penny (the brown one) was so snowy that I had to look closely to tell her apart from the others.

Maybe it’s the little things.

This last photo is looking out my bedroom window.  I recently created a new Pinterest board for photographs of views from windows.  That pin board has no purpose other than letting me save pictures that I find beautiful.  I realized that most of them are in a spring setting, which is probably showing where my subconscious wants to be.  But when I stop to think about it, I already have a great view outside my own window.  Sweet animals, cheerful yellow chicken coop, lots of snow-covered trees are what I see at the moment.

These few photos are my views that I found amidst the dreary long winter.

But I had to look for them before I was able to see them.