Various Signs of Spring

I spotted a group of our local snowmobile club at the top of our rise yesterday un-Iwo Jima-ing their many flags that dot our back meadow through the winter and coiling in the thick rope that corrals the mobilers within a designated swath and my heart sang Joy! Rapture!  Now here was a sign of Spring! When the blossoming of daffodils and crocus are still a couple weeks away, green grass and the leafing of our trees ain't coming 'til May, and our pond is still frozen you grab for anything you can get.  And that sight was an unexpected gift.  It was sort of silly how happy it made me feel.  April can be the cruelest month up here.  You're grateful for the sunshine, but everything else stubbornly holds on to this grey, yellowy beige, or dulled white pallor, tree bark and trampled meadow grass and receding piles of snow, much of it in our backyard where the sun only shines on it in the late afternoon.  And that snow has ample amounts of grey gravel sprinkles on it due to our snow plougher Shannon's overzealous scraping of our driveway and parking area during the snowfall months.

But the flags are gone, the ropes are gone, our meadow has been set free.  I can imagine invisible maverick horses galloping free, FREE!!  This is good, this is very good.

Another sign of spring, of course, is the sap running.  As I mentioned in my last post, some tree tappers have inadvertently tapped a grove of at least 6 maples on our side of the property line.  2 days ago I trekked through the gullies and forests, following the green tubing to its source to see who I should contact to make them aware of their mistake.  It would be a rare thing that the sugarer would be the property owner himself, usually other people are given permission to come onto other's properties to "sugar" the land.  But the property owner might be a good lead to contact.  This particular property owner I would soon learn was a Mr. Junkins who owns quite a substantial chunk of terra firma back here, land which at one point a good while back had been a camp of some sort.  Mr. Junkins has no phone; his post office box is in New Hampshire and the sign I would soon discover on his property gate proclaims a different, darker version of that state's motto - "No Trespassing! Police Take Notice!"

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I trekked down through the gullies, the landscape looking a lot like "Winter's Bone," following the tangle of green, surgical tubing filled with bubbled, clear liquid, until it sutured into larger, thicker black piping.  A lot of this was along the VAST trail - or, okay this is a guess, the Vermont Automated Snow Travelers trail - which we and other landowners, Mr. Junkins among them, grant passage across our lands during the winter months.  But it not being winter and me not being on a automated snow vehicle, I was officially trespassing on this "his" land.  There were spots along the VAST trail and other makeshift roads a traversed where the thicker black tubing would come to a gathering section where a silver spigot was attached.  Here I surmised was where a truck with a big plastic sap collecting container - one of which gathers our spring water in our basement - backs up to the spigot in order to gather the clear nectar and transport it to a nearby sugar shack to boil and steam down to syrup.   The tubing and trail kept snaking down, down, down the hill.  Finally it all came to an end point and a fork in the road, both forks coming to a steep finish.  The right fork flowed down into a heavily rutted private road and this in turn emptied off to the left into what I surmised was Swamp Road, a back road which abuts a piece of our 55 acres.  There was an open metal gate spray painted with a big orange arrow directing snowmobilers and sap gathers "up this way," the way I had just come.   The left fork emptied down into a compound of sorts, the back of a pick-up with green and white New Hampshire "Live Free or Die" plates opened up to me.  There were a few other vehicles and junk arranged around a burgundy stained structure, part pressed wood, part black plastic.  It all screamed for snarling guard dogs, but despite the signs of habitation there were no sounds at all coming from the building.  I felt it wise not to step onto their property even though I hadn't yet seen the sign warning the police to beware.  Just something in the air, an intuition.  So I skidded down the right fork, slopped through the mud to the broken down mail boxes on Swamp and Hood Trail, the ame of the private road.  More no trespassing signs.

I can't lead you on anymore.

Nothing actually happened.  No one was home.  It was all filled with portent and anti-government showdowns and this land is my land, blam, blam, blam! but nothing happened.  I just let it be.  I trekked back home, did a little more sleuthing work.  Found out from our town clerk that Mr. Junkins had had "issues" with people in the past, contractors, etc.  Batteries stolen, charges made, whoohah.  Also, our friend Dale who also abuts Mr. Junkins property told us that during the summer there's a lot of target practice echoing over their hill from back there, target practice with what sounds like automatic weapons, assault weapons.   But that's Dale and that's hearsay, but I said it here.  Dale advised not contacting him at all.  Also, Mike Emerson, a stout, rather imposing figure who does a lot of sugaring in these parts and whom I had asked Dale to inquire about who might be sugaring up on our land, has been vandalized of late.  His sugar shacks along the road have been vandalized, that is - pumps taken apart, rolled down hills, lines cut.  I asked if this was a general wave of vandalism toward all sugar shacks and Dale suggested it was aimed specifically at Mike, that a few years ago someone had shot holes in his tanks.  "And so, " Dale concluded, "I don't think it might be the BEST time to be in touch with Mike about your tapped trees."

Okay, okay.  Let it go, let it go.

So Richard and I were very Green Mountain State late yesterday afternoon.  After a day of writing tax checks (Ugh!) and traveling around the area, running errands, and reading out loud to each other from an old Perry Mason mystery we somehow had gotten hooked on, we bundled up and took some pink, plastic boundary marking tape we'd procured from Dale (Dale's a realtor in these parts; he, in fact, represented our house when we bought it) back to the back of our property and amid all the green tubing we clearly marked our property line.  Afterwards, we hiked through an uncharted piece of our property together and came upon the most gorgeously preserved piece of stone wall.  It was like delicately laid grey eggs, perfectly put together by prehistoric someones.  There were pieces of toppled logs and branches in various stages of decay tilted across the wall, like wooden cannons against ancient battlements, vestiges of past strife long forgotten, and as we walked along the wall, we'd clean the way, lifting and tossing and shoving the logs this way and that until there was a clearly marked, unsullied wall to marvel at.  Down below to our left you could see the open cleared pastures of our neighbors Dennis and Judy and I was reminded once again that all this land, every stone walled piece of it, all the way back and beyond the disputed piece of tubed maples, was at one time, not too long ago, cleared land, treeless, grassy, rolling hills.  Amazing.  It opens one's mind, that thought.

Richard and I climbed up out of the woods, talking about the future trails we would clear.  I could hear the happiness in Richard's voice.  And we sat on the Adirondack benches at the top of the rise to look out over the rolling hills, down over our now unflagged, unroped meadow, to admire and take in the ending of the day.

Something to squawk about

Up in Vermont for Easter and the week following. Our young gander is the self appointed watch dog of our goose bunch. He squawks at least one time during the night and then off and on during the morning -- when someone's humping nearby or when the Canada Geese pair, patiently waiting for our pond to thaw, flies in for a visit. The wild and domesticated geese are getting along very nicely this year. We'll see if that changes once eggs are laid on goose island and the air becomes more territorial and North Korean. 

It's 28 degrees this morning. The last 2 dawns have provided a voila of newly fallen snow. So weird to have it dusting the frozen ruts of mud season on the roads. Hiked to the back of our property on Easter to discover that someone has tapped a whole grove of maples that we thought were on our land. Went down to the town clerk to get to the bottom of the controversy, but some lands have only been spottily surveyed. There's supposed to be the twisted remnants of an old barbed wire fence that went right along the border, but it's still below the frozen snow. More shall be revealed. It might have made it easier to take if they either had tapped them the old fashioned way with galvanized taps and buckets or that they had one new tap per tree. These tappers put multiple taps - popular, but not really good for the trees - connected by strands of colored plastic tubing which makes the backwoods look like a triage unit. Ugh.

Heard my first fox call the other night - the first that I was aware of, that is. Maybe that's what the young gander was squawking at. The howl - no it didn't sound like a howl, not in a wolf or coyote sense. It was so distinct, other worldly, spooky and wonderful, very much a creature of the night laying claim to its private part of the air, calling "I am here" in wildness. Cool.



It's a few hours later.  Been sleuthing up in the woods.  Went back the first time and right when the trail hit the shade of the woods it turned to a sheet of ice and my feet flipped out forward from beneath me and I slammed down on my back and elbow and head.  Resilience, thy name is body.  Thanks.  I skedaddled back down to the house for crampons and as I did I thought of my mom going ass over teakettle and cracking her pelvis.  She's just a twig.  A resilient twig in her own right - and she ignored the pain for about a week - but then had to go in and get patched up.  

I retrieved the crampons, slipped them on over my muck boots just before stepping into the icy shade of the woods, and was off Sherlocking.  Got to the back of the property, and traced the survey pin to several snatches of old barbed wire, over old logs, through thickets of saplings, down the hill to where the barbed wire abuts the original stone wall.  There are definitely 6 trees, possibly twice as many, that have been tapped on our side of the line.  Now to find the culprit.  Actually, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, that it's not an act of defiance or lack of courtesy, they simply thought they'd been given permission on someone else's land and didn't know that these groves were not included.  We'll ask for a couple gallons of syrup as compensation and ask them not to tap the trees again.  Our realtor friend Dale feels it may be Mike Emerson who has a goodly amount of the taps around.  More to be revealed.

Temperature is not 39 and all the new fallen snow has vanished.  Just the old piled up stuff remains.

First Day of Spring

At the exact moment of the vernal equinox this morning - 7:02 EDT - I was dropping Richard off near the Starbucks at 35th and 8th Avenue here in New York where a Cape Air shuttle would pick him up, drive him to White Plains where he would embark on a 9 seat Cessna to Lebanon NH where a snow-covered Subaru awaits to carry him on up to chilly Vermont.

As I wrote the above, Richard called from his car, heading north, crossing the Ompompanoosuc River where the reception gets sketchy, and in between static bursts he said that it was a winter wonderland up there, the recent storm having sifted down about 6 to 8 inches of new snow.  Our caretaker at the "farm" (as we've come to redisignate our Vermont place, as the equation of time spent at "home" shifts to favor New York City rather than Vermont) has cautioned us that the roads are very slippery, a coating of snow over both an icy layer, and, below that, the remnants of deep ruts begun a week or so back when balmier weather beckoned in mud season.  Shifts and changes.

After bidding my husband goodbye, I headed north myself for a trek through Central Park in search of crocus (croci?), a large Pain le Quotidian coffee in my mitts for warmth and sustenance.   It felt like an Easter Egg hunt with the crust of snow serving as earthen excelsior.  It took awhile to find some.  There were plenty of daffodils just at the end of their cocoon stage, yellow blossoms tuliped tight within the thinnest of green membranes, but no crocus.  I loved this, since the memory was fresh of last year's unseasonably warm winter with daffodils and crocus blooming in profusion in January.  Finally Shakespeare's Garden just south of Delcorte Theatre became the treasure trove of yellow and purple buds, surrounded by tiny, tiny fireworks of iris exploding around them.  What a delight!  A lowly gardener troweled quietly, quietly beside a hemlock, invisible, hidden.  Everything, even the air, said hush.  Tread softly, tread softly, on mouse feet.  Even the runners were mute as breath, respectful of the fragile beginning of things.  Spring, hope, new, blossom, sun, renaissance, rebirth, color, green, yellow, purple, white.  Blossoms breaking through snow.  There's something of the miraculous in that.  Resurrection!  And now with both New York and Vermont and realistic spring measured against actual spring being about a month apart, we will get to experience spring twice, today in New York and a month from now in the Green Mountain State.  Not bad.  Good.  Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Happy Spring everyone!

Betwixt and between

It's a cold early Sunday, post-Nemo here in Providence RI.  I'm on the 12th floor of a residency building, built around the time I was last working/living here, I believe, in the late 70's, mid-80's.  It has a comfy, yet sterile look.  My apartment is white and beige, a bit antiseptic, bringing color into this environment is up to you.  Cats, cat toys and roosts, plants and flowers, books help.  The outside is now an extension of the same color scheme, save the tender pale blue of the sky.  From where I roost, it looks as if the city is pretty well dug out.  The interstate is flowing smoothly, pavement seen, all's well.  But I got a phone call from a friend in Pawtucket last night that said his neighborhood hasn't been plowed yet, they're still under 2 plus feet of snow.  He reports that the state was so overwhelmed by the amount of snow that they had to job out for private contractors to keep the major streets clean.  Vermont, at least our piece of it, seems to have fared better.  A substantial fall, but not crippling, all taken in stride.  Richard's on his way down for an extended stay today, both the Dartmouth Coach and Amtrak are up and running after an enforced hiatus.  I'm in Providence doing "Crime and Punishment" at Trinity Rep and for the past 2 nights the play has been cancelled.  I felt it was a no brainer that, of course, the 2 performances today would be done, but with the news of neighborhoods still buried, it doesn't seem as likely as I thought.

Still, still, it's gorgeous out.  My friend and fellow cast mate, Rachel, and I ventured out last night around 6, ostensibly to go to a movie at the Cable Car Cinema whose doors were gated and shut tight when we arrived.  So it was the journey itself that was the delight and not the destination.  Some sidewalks were clear, clean cake-sliver cuts in the snow to show how high the fall had gone; up to my knee at least, in other parts even higher with drifting.  The best way to walk, the clearest way, were the streets, where the tamped down snow was tattooed with swirly tire indentations, like ancient messages worthy of a Werner Herzog documentary.  Just being out in it, the bracing fresh air, the flocked trees, flocked light posts, flocked everything, raised the glee factor.  We giggled and laughed and patted our gloved hands together, dodging oncoming plows.  There were fellow travelers in similar spirits, curious, happy to be out.  And there were the workmen, toiling away at the mounds of white stuff.  We turned up one side street near City Hall alive with the ratchety whirr of a snow blower and came upon a Matterhorn of blown and plowed snow blocking the street. Obviously this was a dumping ground from the other streets and we marvelled and wowed it as we passed.  (An hour or so later we revisited to find that the mountain had been moved to Mohammed.)  Westminster Street, Rachel's favorite, had stringed lights up and above down the center of the street, not illuminated, but flocked and the whole street, somewhat deserted, evoked the final scenes of "It's A Wonderful Life" and Jimmy Stewart slip sliding with joy past the Savings and Loan.  A bicycle stood frozen, encased up to its icy leather seat, like a cave man being thawed out after millennia.  There were some businesses open, a couple bars and restaurants, and their windows glowed with warmth and inviting camaraderie.  As we came out on the river, the city opened up and I looked back at its silhouette against the starlit sky.  I like Providence's look.  Nothing overly showy, but with smart clean lines, sharp, Tim Gunn comes to mind.  We'd hoped to see a collection of Oscar nominated short films at the Cable Car and were momentarily bummed when we saw it was shut, but spirits quickly revivied - "It's just nice being out!!" - and we shifted to window shopping for a while, and then veered down an icy cement stairway for an alternate route back "home."  That's when we discovered - was it The Colonial Tap?  A place Rachel told me was usually hopping at this time on Saturday night.  Its large parking lot was almost deserted save for an SUV crunching its way in and a lone individual sweeping at the door.  The lights were on, it looked promising, so why not?  "A toddy!" Rachel announced and since I'd never had a toddy before and was game for most anything, I followed her lead.  We chuckled our way over the mountain range of snow between us and the inn, toddling into our forbears footprints, trying our best to avoid avalanches of the cold white stuff down inside our boots.  Victory!  We shook ourselves off, shucked our coats and scarves, and sat at the bar with 6 other swaddled folk who were bemoaning the woes of shoveling and the ick of it all.  A couple of ale quaffing mates came in and out of view in the wide doorway of the next room, alternately playing a game of pool and throwing darts at a board. The place was in a basement really, encased in brick, and had a speakeasy/dive feel to it.  Our bartender was a curious fellow, kind and clean, but wearing a coverall denim get up that looked as if he might toss in a transmission change on your car after he fixed your drink.  He hadn't made many toddies in his day, but was willing to try.  They were terrific.  "Sorry, no cinammon sticks," he apologized, but he'd taken great care to put 3 whole cloves in a lemon slice and set down plenty of honey and sugar for our enjoyment.  We warmed with the citrusy, honeyed bolt of alcohol in our veins and our conversation glowed and bounced in contrast to the hum of weather complaints continuing just down the bar from us.  No matter.  I could have easily had another, we both acknowledged the Salome dance inside us beckoning yet one more, but wisdom won out and back into the cold we went, the holiday spirit reignited.  It was fun.  The whole jaunt.  Out for an icy walk with a friend, enjoying the rich bon homie of it all, revelling in the sheer delight of being alive.  I felt as if I'd gone sledding.

Inauguration and other things

This I posted on my facebook page several days ago:


Inauguration a couple days later. A quick dash to dc to spend the day with my sister. A day of walking, navigating numerous security points, craning for views, realizing we probably should have gotten in earlier because our standing area was already cram packed. But the crowds were magnificent, the people sohelpful and good humored and informed and many of them oh so stylish. We were very close to the pro-life protester who had shimmied up a spruce and bellowed throughout the ceremony. There were occasional shouts of "shut up!" but mostly the crowd took it in stride, let him have his scream. It's all America. The rest of the day was spent hopscotching streets to catch glimpses of the parade, grabbing a bite at Union Station, snatching a Starbucks, smiling and hugging and congratulating one another for having made it, taking in the glorious light of the day, the bands and floats, getting second winds. We ended up on the bleachers right across from Obama's viewing stand in front of the White House. I was told these had been $1,000 a seat, but again they were filled with regular folks, standing on the seats, taking pictures, all in fine cheer. We stayed for about an hour and a half then meandered to a recommended restaurant, Lincoln, on Vermont - both very fitting - where we imbibed some alcoholic concoctions with Mary Todd and Honest Abe monikers and munched on exquisite, tapas-sized dishes. A great day!

On those bleachers while snapping pictures and visiting with the cheerful folk around us, a Norwich Academy band marched by in full blare.  The lights blazoned their path.  Then several Indiana bands as well, my home state, the state where my sister still lives.  A day of present, past, and future all coming together at once.  My sister and I, all smiles, by ourselves for a rare time, enjoying every moment of it, conjuring Washington times of our past - a mid-October trip a month before Kennedy's Assassination; Eisenhower's funeral; the bicentennial with friends, a quilted encampment on the mound of the Washington Monument - and now this day, now in the past itself.  It was a terrific day.

I'm in Providence RI as I write this, having opened a production of Crime and Punishment, a challenging and thought provoking beginning to a New Year.  Except for a few quick trips northward, Vermont does not figure into my plans until April, and even then, who knows for how long.  It's an inaugural year, new beginnings, a balancing of country and city on more of a full time basis.  New York and Vermont.  We're setting out to make New York a more permanent fixture rather than giving it transient status.  A new adventure, answering a calling.  Lots of questions, lots of how's this going to happen which we're leaving to the universe, confident that answers will come when they're needed, and for now, joy in living, fortify faith, dance with possibilities, see what resonates, and put one foot in front of the other.  And it's good and apt that this buoying port of departure into newness is Providence, a providing place, making provisions for the future, a place to which I've returned to work after nearly 30 years, a place that had served as my original port of entry into New England in 1978.  A returning and a beginning all at once.  I love it.  A good way to start the year. 

Two of our cats, Astrid and Sofia, are here with me.  A harbinger of the change.  They weren't too keen on the nomadic aspect of this move, meowing all the way when Richard drove them down in their sherpa carriers a couple weeks back.  They've settled in quite nicely now, helped with catnip sprinkled toys and towers, a squeaking mouse on a stick toy our friend Jean Ann Allen gifted us with, and lots of affection.  We're all domiciling quite nicely, thank you very much.  It's good to experience their particular art in grounding me, snuggled up warmth on my lap urging me to sit a while, slow down, take the time.  Okay.  Okay.

So here's to January, nearly gone now.  The beginning month.  A time of resolutions, really a sort of framing of the year.  The question "What would I like to have happened a year from now?" spurs me on.  It's fun this year, not a burden as in the past.  A big fat spaghetti throw to the creative wall.  Blank slate.  Hoorah!  Let's see.  I wish you all your own eventful inaugurations and adventures and faithful leaps.  Enjoy!

Night Walks

Just down from a chilly sit on the rise.  I was fooled by the “warm” weather for this time of year, in the 30’s by the thermometer, but the wind skidded the feel down to the 20’s.  Still I love sitting there at any season, looking out on the gentle roll of mountains, striated bands of ridges, opening and opening off into the distance.  I’m taking in as much as I can each day, letting it reside within so I can carry it with me.  When I leave for the holidays I don’t know when I’ll be back next, maybe not until April.  A bittersweet thought, so I’m letting it go, letting it loose. 

The pond is frozen solid now, a grey, opaque crust with powdered sugar snow sprinkled around its edges and dusting throughout.  I’m in the kitchen now, looking out across the road, a good fire creaking in the jodul stove, Christmas music on the stereo.  Richard’s gone until 3, so I’m alone to read, write, ponder, work on an upcoming play.  It’s hard not to want to sleep all day.  I guess that’s the body’s natural leaning this time of year, toward hibernation.  That’s fine with me.  Love naps, love dreams, love everything to do with that.  Sometime I’ll take my daily walk.

I’ve gotten in the habit of taking night walks down our road, 2 miles to North Road, 2 miles back.  There are things I miss from walking in the day – the vistas, being able to read a book as I walk if the mood moves me, my tryst with Robert and Lenice’s golden lab Anu when I pass their place.  She senses me coming and barks and barks making sure it’s me before she barrels toward me and at the last minute flips onto her back in an ecstasy of subservience; oh, she’s such a sweet, sweet dog.  The dark’s been calling me though.  I usually set out just after the last blast of incredible light from the sunset reflecta off the tall maples surrounding our orchards, the sun’s own brand of “Adieu, adieu, remember me.” I don my reflector vest, elastic strap a camp light to my forehead, and step out into the darkening landscape right around 4:30 (still so weird it getting dark at that time, my body feels off accepting that).  First, I walk the geese up to their house.  They go without a fuss, they know, they’re almost grateful for the shepherding.  “Show us the way.”  We go slowly, their pace, me whispering “thank yous” to them as they pad methodically along.  I love watching their pliable orange feet give and take with the earth, those marvelous, prehistoric looking triangles with claws, so quiet.  As they near their gate, they look down to measure the little hop they have to make over the 2 X 4, peering as if they’re in need of glasses.  I give them room.  Shmuel’s the last one in and then turns to give a ritual “don’t cross this line” gesture, sticking his neck out slightly.  To give the gesture a little oomph, he might shiver flutter his wings and nibble at the fencing across the gate after I snap the door shut, but that’s rare anymore.  We have an understanding now, between men, that that’s his place and outside’s mine.  The chickens may be ready to be shut up by then too, even though Richard has their “light” lengthened an hour before and an hour after the sun with a light bulb mounted on the ceiling near the door.  This keeps goings on in the coop a little more lively than normal.  2 birds are usually perched atop the door and I have to gently grab them by their feet and transfer them to a roosting bar before shutting the door.  At first this entailed a lot of fuss and feather flapping, but now we both are letting it be easy.  A “thank you” is in order for them too after the shift is made. 

Then I’m off.  Now it’s usually just the sound of the wind and the trudge of my muck boots in the sandy road.  An occasional passing car or truck, momentarily slowing when my reflectors or light bring me into view.  Yesterday, for the first part of the walk, I was taking words of a script off the page and speaking them to the surrounding woods, the words on the page illuminated by my head lamp.  The woodland creatures might’ve been wondering who this weirdo was.  It was fun, though.  And freeing.  The wind, the script’s words given new twists.  But most of the walk was just walking sounds.  It gets to be you can hardly make out anything.   I have a sense of where the road is going, and I have my little head lamp, whose ray at one point reminded me of the point in “It’s a Wonderful Life” when Clarence has jumped into the water to “save” Jimmy Stewart and the bridge watchman flips on a searchlight to fine the source of the frantic screams.  Anu saw the light coming down the road as I neared Robert and Lenice’s and began barking a good guard dog alert.  She didn’t recognize it as me, though, despite my calls to calm her down, trying to get her to come over.  She sounded a bit confused by it all, and was finally called in and I was alone again.

It’s cozy out in the dark, invigorating.  Without the distraction of views, the focus is completely on your thoughts.  Out in the elements with the headlamp acting as a kind of guide, illuminating what needs to be illuminated.  The houses look like ocean liners on a dark sea as you pass them.  A little bit of magic.  It’s all comforting.  So I suppose I’m taking the darkness in and letting it reside within me too, taking it with me wherever I go.  It seems fitting for this time of year.

Holiday shift

Taking a break from creating turkey leftover cuisine. Today, a big, thick turkey vegetable soup simmers on the stove top.  Christmas music is on in the living room, our favorite CD, St Martin's in the Field, something we picked up in London about 15 years ago.  We stick to the tradition of no Christmas anything until after Thanksgiving.  I hauled out a few things today since I'm here alone with the cats, Richard's off at a rehearsal. It feels good.  I feel slightly under the weather, probably just post Thanksgiving weariness.  Waiting for the local snowmobile club to come and put up their ropes and signs and reflectors on a piece of our upper property which the state snowmobile trail traverses.  We give our permission every year.  I'm still a bit on the fence about it.  Some riders used to disobey the signs and go all over our property, but lately all has been well.  And they keep the path well tended as it winds through our woods, so a year at a time, and this year, why not?    We had our first snowfall last night, just about an inch, but a nice coverlet for the trees, the tops of the grass still sticking through, like Walt Whitman's hair of graves.  It's a bittersweet sight, the snow.  The trees look like they're sleeping now, all tucked in.  We're definitely in for the long haul of winter weather (knock on wood.)  I went for a walk last night - well, it was barely 4:30 or 5, but already dark.  I refused to stay inside so early.  There was an inviting bite to the air, a few flakes dancing down, lovely.  So I donned my fleece, put on my reflector vest, my camping head lamp strapped loosely to my winter cap, and I trekked off into the wind and whoosh.  Not many cars or trucks, just me and the trees, watching over me, my friends.

Oh.  "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" just came on, one of my favorite Christmas Carols.  It fits the day, my mood.  I'm a sucker for those carols with joy sung in a minor key.  It includes everything of life in it, sadness and joy right alongside one another always, always, always.

Chores done, soup on a low simmer, cats all decked out in slumber around the house.  I'll just carry some wood up from the cellar, stoke the fire, fill the woodpile, and then maybe take a little snooze.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Thanksgiving was fine this year, by the way.  A good group of friends filled with terrific conversation, substantial, hearty, talking of the challenges of our times and sussing out possible solutions and change, never dwelling on the problem, not fixed, never black and white, embracing all.  Very nourishing this Thanksgiving on all levels.  It was still hard taking some of our birds to the processor.  Rough.  My buddhist hair stylist cracked herself up wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving on Wednesday after a trim.  "Enjoy your murder," she said, guffawing.  "Sorry, I just couldn't help myself."  Buddhists!  You know I love 'em!