Happy New Year!

For John, Doug & Kim, and all those who revere the natural world.
Digging one day for fish worms I discovered the ground nut (apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had often since seen its crimpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same. Cultivation has well nigh exterminated it...In these days of fatted cattle and waving grain fields, this humble root, which was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known only by its flowering vine, but let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of foes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the last seed of corn to the great corn-field of the Indian's god in the southwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost exterminated ground nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe.
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

kindred

Temperature at 30 degrees this morning. It's been warm and wet, squirrels out and about. I've been reading Walden, by Thoreau over the Christmas break. I think I found a kindred spirit.
In the midst of a gentle rain...I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me...Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me...
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

Christmas spirit

Temperatures unseasonably warm. The creek is high, and the lane is muddy. Had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. The highlight (or lowlight) was when Shawn was fighting for 1/4 point credit in Andy's current events quiz last night; one quarter of a point! That's the Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas!

I saw this at the Rutland recycling center at this time of year in 2011. It seemed to me to be a poignant statement, not only about the world we inhabit, but also what it means to be a human being. Merry Christmas!

crystalline

Clementines in the markets. Season of windshield washer fluid. Icicles forming out of cuts along roadways. They look like crystalline pipe organs.
A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
Walt Whitman
Zen page-a-day calendar

wood heat

Like many men my age, I find myself getting up a couple of times during the night. When I open the door to the bedroom, and head towards the kitchen, I can estimate pretty quickly that state of the fire burning in our wood stove. Our Vermont Castings Resolute stove is merely decorative during the warmer months. In the winter it is probably the central feature of our life at home.
I was over at a friend's house last night. We talked about a number of things, but spent most of the time talking about his new chimney insert pellet stove. It sure put out a lot of heat. He mentioned our recent storm, and how he had to buy a generator to keep the new stove going. I pointed out the advantage of our stove. Electricity isn't needed to keep our stove operating nicely during  the winter weather

in the morning

I took a walk on the Crossroads at dawn on Saturday for the first time in a long time; Jupiter high in the sky overhead, smell of wood smoke, ice crunching underfoot, sound of a blue jay in the nearby pine tree. It was 8 degrees above zero, fingers and cheeks burning from the cold. I have gone for a walk in the morning ever since.

The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.
Walden
Henry David Thoreau

south-facing

There is a new young man operating the snow plow this year. I have put out road markers along the side of the lane to show him the way. Hauled out the wool Green Bay Packers hat for cold days. In the same way that south-facing parking spaces are desirable this time of year, so are south-facing offices. I don't have one.

sunny side

Rain yesterday on top of ice, snow; a bad combination. Road salt for sale in the stores. Our parking lot has a shaded side, and a sunny side. I try to part in the shaded side during the summer. Now I am shooting for the sunny side.
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
Henry David Thoreau
Zen page-a-day calendar

Milky Way

Whenever I am out, and the nights are clear (and there haven't been many of those lately), I take a look to see what is going on in the night sky. I look for planets, stars, constellations, and other objects I can name. The Milky Way is usually prominent. I remember one evening when I was doing a lot of star gazing, that there was an area I was looking to observe except there was a persistent cloud that was in the way. If only it would move a little or disappear, the viewing would seemingly be easier. It never did move. After awhile I realized it wasn't a cloud, it was the Milky Way, duh.
In the summer the Milky Way runs almost directly north/south. At this time of year it runs southwest to northeast. I've never been able to wrap my head around what is going on there, to see it in my minds eye.
A couple of weeks ago I was out looking around as usual. The Milky Way was in its usual fall/winter position, and I got it. If the stars that I look at in the southernmost section of the Milky Way are out of view to the southwest, then when they are present in the sky at this time of year, it's daylight. Suddenly it all fit together, and another of my celestial mysteries was solved.

tacky

The Nutcracker being performed at the Paramount. Handel's Messiah has already been performed. We put up the Christmas tree over the weekend. What a wonderful smell. Boy, we sure have some tacky Christmas ornaments.

birds in winter

In our newly consolidated plant at work, the sales area has become the engraving area. They are lucky to have inherited the large, south-facing windows. A bird feeder was immediately installed outside. I like to stop over there periodically and watch the activity (note the cardinal). The chickadees & others bring such effervescence and life to the winter months.
The crows seem to come out of the shadows this time of year. They are such an intelligent presence. When you watch them & listen to them, there always seems to be some kind of underlying drama going on that I'm not privy to. There was a guy who used to work here that hated the crows. He used to yell at them, and bother them whenever possible. One day he came to work, and a crow was sitting on the top of the entryway. The bird flew directly over this person, and s%*t on him. It wasn't an accident.

aftermath

Driving in to work on Thursday morning, pickup trucks plowing out driveways. When I went by the Holiday Inn, a whole fleet of utility vehicles was pulling on to Route 7. There were at least 20 of them, probably more. It reminded me of the time after Hurricane Katrina. Sound of people stamping their boots before coming inside.
I mentioned in passing how my neighbor & I had cut down the tree on his property that was blocking my lane. Not everyone's neighbor is like that in Vermont, but a lot of them are. I think it's fair to say that the sense of community is very strong in Vermont.
Allyn had another snow day yesterday. That's three in a row!

anatomy of a snowstorm

Our latest snowstorm began on Tuesday.
Allyn had a snow day. It didn't start snowing until about 4:00 PM.
When I left work, however, it was really coming down, big wet flakes about the size of an apricot.
It was very difficult driving home. I was going about 30 on the bypass, about 20 when I got behind a slow mover on 133. Doug said he got behind someone going 5 mph.
Allyn went to Bone Builders. When she got home, she said there was a tree leaning over the lane. It was on the neighbor's property so I called him. We cut it up together.

Wednesday the storm continued. Allyn had a snow day. I got a call from work to stay home until called. It's the first time we've both been home on a workday that I can remember.
I finally went in to work about 10:00, limbs hanging down. The snow was very wet. The snow that had been moved by the snowplows held itself together. It looked like a large ice cream log.

It snowed, sleeted & rained all day. It was snowing hard when I drove home. This time I was able to hit 40 on the bypass, and 30 on 133.

Thursday morning. The storm appears to be over. Allyn has a two hour delay at school. Sheesh.

by the way

There are only two things going on this time of year on The Other Side of the Creek. People are preparing for Christmas, and for the advent of winter. Christmas lights on Rte 7. Smell of snow in the air. Christmas music in the stores. Oh, and by the way, John & Ellen are expecting a baby in June!

Christmas trees

Christmas trees seen in lots, and on the tops of cars as well as at work. Annual appeals appearing in the mail. Bringing work shoes into the office, and leaving them there over the winter. Wearing boots to and from work to contend with snow storms like today when we're expecting 10 inches of snow.

splinters

It is interesting and kind of ironic that thermodynamic phenomena are most easily seen during cold weather. There are too many to name, but a couple occurred recently. Allyn reported that there were splinters of ice in the lane under either foot prints or tread prints. I understand that pressure will turn snow flakes into water which then becomes ice. When our boots squeak in the snow, it means that it's too cold for snow to be turned into water/ice.

The second occurred on the patio in the back where some areas were melting and some were not. I originally thought that the melting areas were over the wooden border around the bricks, but closer inspection revealed that the melting was actually taking place over the bricks. Why this was happening only around the edges is a mystery.

In the light there is dark, but don't take it as dark;
In the dark there is light, but don't take it as light.
Light and dark oppose one another
Like the front and back foot in walking.
The Sandokai

stick season

With the advent of snow, we are coming to the end of "stick season", a stark, austere, beautiful time of the year. So many varying shades of brown, gray, auburn, amber, beige. Driving home last night and seeing the constellation Orion rising in the east. The full moon, the "Cold" moon is Saturday night.

gleaming

Driving Route 7, the high peaks of the Adirondacks gleaming white with snow far to the west. Sound of the Salvation Army bell at Price Chopper.

Foothills beneath a deepening pall of snow as twilight falls.
Far away in a cedar grove, the muffled boom of a bell.
Shinkei
Zen page-a-day calendar

who knows where the time goes

Another snow event. Driving the truck to work a couple of times a week now which is more than I do in the summer. It helps to keep the battery from dying. Brilliant red seed pods appearing on the magnolia tree out front at the Zen Center. I've never seen them before.

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
Oh but don't you know it's time for them to go.
By the winter fire I'll still be dreaming.
I do not count the time.
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?
Sandy Denny

teflon

Snow on the windshield comes off in the morning like a fried egg in a teflon pan. Shoes, boots & jackets accumulating in the kitchen. Cars with Jersey plates & skis heading north on Route 7.

On dead branches crows remain perched at autumn's end
Basho
Zen page-a-day calendar

l'heure bleu

Woke up on Thanksgiving morning to one of my favorite wintertime phenomena, the arrival of blue snow, the color of a robin's egg. The French have a phrase for this magical time of day, l'heure bleue.