“Not yesterday I learned to know the love of bare November days.”

Robert Frost’s words from his poem, “My November Guest” speak softly to Claire Murphy.

She understands and appreciates the bare November days of which Frost speaks.

Murphy spent much of Friday morning outside ranking pine straw and often she paused to rest and take in the beauty of the woods that are such a part of her life.

“Standing there in the woods among the bare trees, I could see though them to another stand of trees that I had not been able to see in so long,” she said. “When the countryside becomes bare, it’s a whole different place. I can see buildings that I haven’t noticed before. I can see where turkeys and deer have been and where they are feeding. Their world is opened up to me. It’s wonderful to see all of the things that have been camouflaged by the foliage of the summer and fall.”

“Bare November days” provide a different view of the forest and the opportunity to experience its changing mood.

“At this time of the year, I can go places in the woods that I haven’t been able to go before,” Murphy said. “I see things that I haven’t noticed before – knots on trees, the color of the bark and vines climbing the trunks.

“And, the quietness. I love the quietness. This morning, it was raining and I could hear the drops as they hit softly on the leaves and the crunch of the pine straw under my feet. The leaves made a carpet on the forest floor and it was absolutely beautiful.”

Murphy said she is captured by the beauty of the fields where the summer crops have been plowed under and the sighting of birds that come to feast on the fields.

“There’s just so much beauty around us that is only revealed when the earth becomes bare and there is nothing blocking our view,” she said. “We just have to become aware of the beauty of all seasons. The winter comes as a way of preparing us for the spring. And, if it were not for the bare winter days, we couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the spring.”

Murphy said she stood Friday reverently admiring the beauty of bare November days.

“The bare trees stand like church spires and they make me even more aware of God and His beauty all around me, especially in bare November days,” she said.