Winter is quietly descending on the Castle Kingdom. There are signs all around, like the Canada Geese overhead in their perfect V formation or, the sandhill cranes grouping together and creating a beautiful ever widening spiral up as they disappear from sight. The pond is very peaceful now with most of the water ducks having visited and then flown away to warmer climates. The main activity outside the Castle Keep windows is the local muskrats busily fortifying their floating houses and the squirrels brazenly stealing the easy food from the bird feeder. Initially I 'm always sad to see the trees losing their leaves and the green grasses turn to brown, but one thing I've come to admire about this time of year is how beautiful the trees are just with their bark and their branches fully exposed and what a calming effect the browns and tans of winter are as they quietly signal the time to hybernate, rest and store up energy until the spring. The deer we know make their home on our 65 acre wooded property are also much more visible now as they cross your path on the trails or when a doe parades her babies just along the bank of the pond on their daily visit to munch on the fallen apples around the gazebo. During the summer they were just out of sight, covered in the thick underbrush and just a glimpse of their raised white tails were visible as they bolted away from view, but now there is less of the forest to obscure your curious watching. I guess I am just now starting to embrace the slower pace of winter and actually beginning to anticipate my own rejuvenation process as I start to let a different perspective come into focus. There was a saying that I heard recently that said something like this, It takes wide open spaces to free us from our own small minds. So true... Come away with us to the Castle Kingdom and do your own little bit of hybernating.,,storing up energy for the next burst of whatever your life is going to require.