Acair Fearann

Winter is never actually monochrome, whether it is how snow reflects all or none of the colors of light, or the bark on the tree in grays, greens, browns, purples, reds…, or the lichen on a stone or the many shades of green that the conifers can come up with.

Consider this picture:

That is about as monochrome as you can get, but actually the shades of brown are going to drive one bonkers.

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For those interested in mapping but lacking at home access to handy measuring tools: (you may need Google Earth already applied, not sure)

https://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-area-calculator-tool.htm

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I’ve always liked sun dogs. There was a nice pair briefly today, in one of those lovely complex cloud formation skies, the sort of sky where the light slips in between the grey ice clouds in bands of gold.

As for where the name sun dog comes from? Wikipedia helpfully informs me it is most likely a combination of sun and an old form for ‘dew’ which means our ancestors were as smart as us. But I like the alternative, and equally solidly backed in historical records, argument that it really does refer to dogs, or hounds, or wolves. Either hunting the sun or faithful followers, take your pick.

Mythology is fun!

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An absolutely lovely February morning today. No wind, mild in the twenties, with breaking clouds. The classic violet, to pink, to gold, and then to white against the clear blue day.  The trees were all perfectly outlined in snow. Not the heavy sort of snow that weighs things down, nor last week’s cold cement like layer. This was the fluffy, slightly sticky powder that picks out every single branch in detail. Very pastoral. The eight deer gamboling (yes really) in the meadow certainly added to the scene.

The wildlife in general seemed to like the weather. Our office raven was quite proud today. He (or she? How does one tell?) often entertains himself on the various vehicles. He has a fondness for the mirrors of course, but particularly for sitting on the toolboxes in the pickups. Not sure why. I am not quite sure what would happen if one left a window or a door open at this point….He seems to understand the difference between windows, mirrors, and doors…In any event, he has now taken to sitting on vehicles even when they are idling next to the building*, it does let one get a good look at him though!

*Only when the mood strikes though, one can go days only hearing him and not seeing him.

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One can’t see it in the photograph, but directly over that small pine tree is a river, about five hundred feet down from where I am standing. I could just catch the occasional flash of light on it.

Canton Land Trust property, a nice hike.

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The pond is finally beginning to refill, about half full at this point. Hopefully the groundwater is coming back up.

Otherwise, not much going on. Tried to trim some branches back from the driveway, scratching up the UPS truck is one thing….scratching up my boyfriend’s shiny new, black, large, truck….that is another thing! I still need to do more work though, probably from the bed of a truck to really get the branches that need getting (those are for the UPS truck)

Reading a book the other day, about an early attempt at setting a trading post up on the Northwest Coast at the mouth of the Columbia. Very odd sometimes to realize that the center section of this house was already standing at the time of that expedition (1812). Time and age are funny things.

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I don’t like winter. Oh, I like the snow, I like the lovely night skies, I Love killing off the bugs. But I don’t like winter. I don’t like falling on the ice (after over a month the ‘ouch’ spot on my thigh has finally subsided), I don’t like worrying about other people, whose bones may not be so sturdy, falling on the ice; I don’t like bugging the oil company about filling the oil tank on a house that drinks the stuff (not mine!); I don’t like the fact that whatever it is they put on the roads these days Eats cars; I don’t like….

Eh, I love looking forward to spring though and would I have that if there was no winter? The wonderful, wonderful thing about the seasons is their certainty. You can moan about the problems of season X because there is no question that Season Y, in all its glory, is coming.  It is a safe complaint, and safe complaints are actually a good thing to have.

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I’ve always loved the girl in the long red dress and the guy with the pony tail. It is a fun way to sing, I went to one sing a few years ago. You really can get the roof shaking after awhile. I thought of it after one particular hymn today, similar feel to it.

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and this motivated as much by non political rants I have heard lately as by the political….

If people spent as much time and money working on real, tangible things that can be improved and are important to them…as they do on complaining about how other people are keeping those important things from improving…

Who knows. My major accomplishment for the day was renewing the deer-off flags around our various ‘deer-candy’ plants during my lunch hour. If I can keep them off the plants, some of them promise a very lovely spring show. And noting that my little white oak bids to be taller than I next year. Also finding a spectacularly messy bird’s nest in one the shrubs, they had found some impressive strips of plastic to weave in from somewhere, along with an assortment of grass, twigs, horse hair, and other things. And watching a lovely Red Tail with really, really sharp markings in a big old Sugar Maple this morning. It is a good world, with good people, we would do well to remember that.

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