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