sara always began her day rushing up to the highest point of the road to watch the morning sun burn the mist from the mountainsides , working down to the valley where little houses and barns and plowed fields would emerge as if by magic , and then she would leave the road and follow the deer paths through the forest back to her camp , sometimes taking hours as she stopped to examine lichens growing on rocks and dead wood passing through various phases of sculptural beauty on its way back to the earth .