Category Archives: Winter

Winter

New Year’s Day horizon

 

Chronologically I should have posted this photo a few days ago. I took it on my first walk of the new year. It is one of my favorite views looking out over the high meadow above Dewey Mills Pond.

I had to snap this one in a hurry just before sundown because the dog was pulling hard on her leash, being very eager to get home and eat. The meadow is much steeper than it appears, I know because I sometimes cross country ski there and it is a tough climb.

On the horizon about two-thirds of the way over from the left, you can see just a sliver of Mount Ascutney, the only monadnock in Southern Vermont and (strange trivia tidbit) eternal resting place of Charles Bronson.

Solstice, Winter

Winter Solstice

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Tomorrow at 7:04 AM EST marks the solstice — the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

Here in the north, it is the shortest day, which means the darkest time is behind us; the days are going to start getting longer from here on out. I find that comforting.

It snowed most of yesterday and last night so this morning, the world outside my window is beautiful. The storm was not intense, just steady and gentle. We drove home at around midnight without feeling ourselves to be in any great danger.

This week, Dave and I have been singing in the Christmas Revels production with Revels North. We’ve been rehearsing every day for the past week and have six performances this weekend. The first two were Thursday and Friday. We still have two more today and two tomorrow.

There’s something strongly pagan about the Revels tradition, even though the music draws heavily from the Christian canon. This particular show features French medieval music, which I love–more proof that I was born in the wrong century, though I’m sure there are parts of the 1400s I wouldn’t have liked much. Plague comes to mind. And being some guy’s chattel would probably have rankled.

My favorite part of the show is the reading of Susan Cooper’s contemporary poem “The Shortest Day”. It begins:

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away …

You can read the full poem on Susan Cooper’s website.

Fall, Travels, Winter

Getting ready for winter

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“Every man looks at his woodpile with a kind of affection.”
– Henry David Thoreau

Ralph L. delivered a couple of cords last week. He dumped the wood on the far side of the house where I couldn’t see it, but plenty of people around town have been commenting to me that we have some work to do. This morning I woke up with just one goal in mind: stack wood. Fortunately, Dave was also motivated so we plugged the iPod into some speakers, stuck them on the back porch and got to work.

Thank you for kind comments from people who have noticed I haven’t been writing lately (hi Jeff). Really I’m only abstaining to spare you from my constant whining. Business is still tough and it consumes so much of my energy that at the end of the day, I just turn off the computer and stare blankly into space.

No, I’m just kidding about the staring into space. I have been reading great quantities of books.

Business aside, it has been a lovely summer. We didn’t take our usual week of vacation, but did get away to New York City for a weekend.

We ate a lot of good food, saw a show, and checked up on the construction work at ground zero, which was the principal view from our hotel room.

As I usually do when in an urban environment, I tried to make Dave walk absolutely everywhere, but he hailed a cab after the first 80 blocks or so. Something about a stabbing pain shooting up one leg and down the other.

The other way I’ve been torturing Dave lately is with the soundtrack from the movie “Mamma Mia.” He is trying to find out if a fondness for ABBA’s music is grounds for divorce.

There has been one cloud on the horizon this summer. In June my 13 year old Lab Retriever laid down and refused to get back up. For some time prior she had been having trouble walking, particularly going up and down stairs, but outright refusal to move was new. We took her to the vet, whom she loves with a passion normally reserved for raw steak. Once she realized where she was, she immediately got up and limped across the room to greet Chris.

Chris listened to our report, observed her stance and gait and told us she likely has Lumbar Spinal Stenosis or Degenerative Myelopathy. Or both. The former responds well to steroids and can be treated with surgery (though not necessarily recommended for a dog Cammy’s age). The latter is generally just a downhill slide.

She has been on steroids ever since and although stairs are still a challenge, she is very nearly her old self. We’re told she isn’t suffering because the nature of the problem is that she has lost sensation in her feet and legs, but we’ve also been warned that this isn’t going to go away, it will get worse, and we will have to decide at some point when to end her life.

I can’t begin to deal with that diagnosis. She is so much a part of my day that she will haunt me forever when she is gone. But for now, I will enjoy her calm presence and do my best to stay in this moment with her. Right here. Right now.