LIBERTY

Main Entry: lib·er·ty
Pronunciation: ‘li-b&r-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French liberté, from Latin libertat-, libertas, from liber free — more at LIBERAL
Date: 14th century
1 : the quality or state of being free: a : the power to do as one pleases b : freedom from physical restraint c : freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d : the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e : the power of choice

PianoAsWeaponOfChange asked me, in a comment on my memoir blog a couple of weeks ago, what “liberty” means to me.  He made a very good point about ego, and the way in which the pursuit of liberty can lead to greed and other “evils”.

Time has flown by as I considered that question.  I had no idea until I went back looking for the comment today that it had been so long.  I have had this pleasurable thought nagging at the back of my mind for seventeen days.  At first, I discussed it briefly with Greyfox and Doug.  I looked up “liberty” in the dictionary to see if I was thinking of it in correct terms.  I have no better personal definition for it than the #1 definition in the dictionary.  My favorite synonym for liberty or freedom is “autonomy”.  I like being my own boss.

I don’t crave or seek total freedom.  To be entirely free, I’d have to be a hermit, without human connections and obligations.  That has no appeal for me.  The give and take of social life are important to me.  Where the social contract begins to pinch for me is the point at which people start telling me what to do.  When I first came online (no lie; no joke–in all sincerity), I felt a negative reaction each time I had to click a “submit” button.  If I have a motto in this life, it is “never submit”.  This, my friends, is not a submissive woman, here.

As a child, I was termed, “contrary”.  Reverse psychology was often successfully applied to me, until I learned to recognize the trick.  My father once said I was so contrary that if I drowned in a river they’d have to search upstream for my body.  One sure way to make me dig in my heels is to push me.  In me that is an instinctive response.  I’ve mellowed some with age and become more cooperative, more considerate of others, but I’m not one bit more submissive.  If anything, my life experience and the confidence and strength I’ve gained over the years have made me less submissive.

I thought it interesting that the example of liberty-gone-wrong given by PianoAsWeaponOfChange was one where wealth was seen as the vehicle to freedom, leading to greed.  The liberty I desired led me to abandon the pursuit of wealth.  Money is just too much trouble.  If not hours and years of honest labor, then equally abhorrent times of scheming or stealing or prostituting myself in one way or another, would have been the price of wealth for me.  I decided I didn’t need that.  I need my time and my attention, free and clear.  In 1972, I quit a job because my boss told me I’d have to wear a bra at work.  It was a kitchen job, without public contact.  It was an unreasonable order.  I probably should have sued the asshole, but that, too, would have been an imposition on my time and freedom.  I just walked out and let him do the cooking until he found someone else to do it for him.

My decision to stop working for other people wasn’t an idealistic one.  It just happened.  A life of illness, a prison record, an undocumented education acquired in libraries on my own, and a tendency to speak my mind and follow my conscience instead of the rules, all conspired to place me in a position, in the mid-1970s, where I was out of work for an extended period of time.  Being forced to find other ways to get by, I found several that I liked better than working for wages.  It is still work, but I’m the boss.  That makes all the difference to me.

PianoAsWeaponOfChange mentioned some religious concepts:  freedom from sin, freedom from self.  My religion distinguishes between evil, error, and sin.  Evil is that which is counter to divine will.  Error is innocent evil; and sin is the knowing commission of evil acts.  I wouldn’t know how to square those definitions with such “freedoms” in a religious sense.  I’m free of sin because I follow this cardinal personal rule:  “Do nothing to damage your self-esteem.”  To knowingly do something that I know is counter to the Divine Will would definitely damage my self-esteem.  Therefore, I do not sin.  But I am far from free of self.  Self is #1 in my book.  My life and the proper running of it is my main business.  My set of rules, my code of conduct, is stricter than that of our legal system or the Ten Commandments.  I live within my own code, and cut myself a lot of slack when it comes to other people’s rules.

There is a lot more I could say about enjoying liberty, but I guess that covers the question I was asked.  I’m tempted to add a, “don’t try this at home, kids”, disclaimer because I know that my system would not work for many people.  Perhaps I’ve already conveyed the idea here that I’m not a liberator of others, not an advocate for my brand of liberty.  I’m just a free person, as willing to accept the occasional trouble and bother required to stay that way as I am unwilling to live by anyone else’s rules.

Another water run today…

This one was all business.  We didn’t take the dog.  We dressed warm and worked fast.

Temps have been going below zero Fahrenheit for several days, and are expected to get colder soon.

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Just because it’s cold out, that is not enough of a reason for me not to take pictures.  I can’t operate the camera (I’m still using the old one… no excuses.) with my insulated gloves on, so I didn’t dawdle with that any more than Doug did at his job of filling jugs and buckets.

Greyfox is in the kitchen now, making himself a sandwich.  I hear him singing, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful…”  He made his trip into Willow to the library as quick and no-nonsense as Doug and I did our water run.  At least he had a warm car to go in.  We warmed it up for him.   We drove across the highway first, to take warm water to the colony of feral cats over there, then on to the spring.  Cars are as averse to cold weather as we are.  Streak started okay, thanks to the block heater, but he was very hesitant to actually move out of the driveway.

It takes a while, a bit of rolling along, to get the tires rounded out and the gears shifting smoothly, etc.  It takes even longer, in these temps, for the embedded wires in the back window to melt the ice.   

Greyfox purchased a sweet new ice scraper for our windows.  It scrapes in two directions, coming and going.  I love it.  I have a special fondness for cheap and simple efficiency, for tools that really work.  That ice scraper is one well-designed piece of plastic.

I intend to keep this blog as brief as we did our water run.  I’m still pairing amethysts–have some resorting to do since the cat jumped onto my worktable and scrambled the stones. 

This area where I work is kinda cool despite the little ceramic space heater under the computer desk.  If I freeze out here, I’ll move over to Couch Potato Heaven next to the woodstove and play with the PS2 for a while.  No rush, no worries, no stress or strain.

I am SO GLAD that Xmas is over.  I was euphoric bordering on ecstatic Xmas eve, having a wonderful time, staying on my diet and all.  Then we had a bit of a family fight Xmas day.  At least it was just the three of us and we cooled off fast.  Fighting, I suppose, is a family tradition.  Every time my aunts, uncles, cousins and all got together when I was a kid, there were harsh words.   I don’t mind living half a world away from those family gatherings now.

• This was in Got Caliche? the newsletter of Southwest Archaeology:

Wall Street Journal Editorial:

In Hoc Anno Domini

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Royster and has been published annually since.

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long.

Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression–for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar.

There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people.

There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God.  “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”  And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Greyfox has done a wonderful nostalgic blog about his favorite old amusement park, that stirred memories for me of Joyland in Wichita, a creaky old wooden rollercoaster in Galveston, the carousel on the pier at Santa Cruz….  Check out his blog AFTER you read what a good mother I am:

[Updating this, AND the timestamp (foolishly) made the "today" and "tomorrow" references in the blog below confusing.  This was written in the evening, Christmas eve.]

Greater love hath no mom…

Doug is still asleep.  He went down as I was getting up this morning around 6, after a busy night in Ragnarok Online, popping Santa Porings and tracking down bucktoothed, bigfooted phony Santa Clauses.  He hasn’t washed dishes for a couple of days.  It’s a continual source of friction between us because I’d prefer storing the dishes, clean, in the cupboards, instead of stacked on my counters, dirty.

I know it’s a crappy job… that’s why he’s the one whose job it is.  He is the junior member of this household, and does more than his share of crappy jobs.  I cut him a lot of slack, but occasionally I rant and rave.  I informed him as he crawled in the sack this morning that I expected him to wash my big turkey pan and the roasting rack tonight when he wakes.

Before Thanksgiving, I bought a bottle of Karo syrup.  It’s not a staple in my larder.  I only use it in pecan pie.  I told Doug then that if he would get all the dishes washed before Thanksgiving, so I’d have a clean kitchen and clear counters, I’d bake a pecan pie.  After Thanksgiving, I pointed out the absence of pecan pie, and told him if he would get the dishes all done by Christmas, I’d bake the pecan pies.  It’s always two… why not?  A pint of Karo makes two pies and my pastry recipe makes two crusts.

Today, I was feeling so well and full of the Christmas spirit, that I decided to bake pies anyway.  Today is the day for that, because the 23 pound turkey will be in the oven almost all day tomorrow.  I moved enough stacks of dirty dishes to clear space to roll out the crust, cleaned the space and my mixer beaters, and prepared the pies.  They are in the oven now.  Since Doug and Greyfox will be eating them without any help from me, I decided we’ll take one of the pies to the couple around the corner.  They like my pies.

I’ve baked so many pies in the last fifty years that I can do it mindlessly.  This time, that would not do.  I had to remain mindful this time, lest I thoughtlessly pop a scrap of raw pastry dough in my mouth, or run my finger into the top of the empty Karo bottle and lick the syrup off.  One little problem I was forced to remain mindful of this time that I never noticed before:  I had to keep my mouth shut, lest I drool on my work.  Although I salivated copiously, I didn’t nosh, except for two half-pecans: choice, tan, sweet, nutritious nuts selected from the three cups full I was breaking into pieces for the pies.  I know that I can handle about a pecan and a half without triggering a glycemic response.

In active addiction mode, I would have been munching too many nuts, along with the slurps of syrup and scraps of dough.  I would have licked the mixing bowl clean.  Not this time, and instead of gobbling down the gobs of dough trimmed from the edges of the crusts, I rolled them out, spread them with cinnamon sugar and baked them while I was mixing up the pie filling.  Greyfox says the cinnamon crisps were, “not bad.”  I can smell the pies now.  I had to take a peek just now.  The timer said there are 23 minutes left until they come out of the oven.  They look great.  I can hardly wait for Doug to wake up.

He won’t have much surprise from his presents this year.  He knows I’m giving him snowshoes, and the hard drive came out of the box and was installed as soon as it arrived.  This, I think, will be a pleasant surprise for him.  The pleasant surprise for me has been how easily I’ve resisted the temptation.  I’ve tried to do this many times before and failed.  The difference this time, I’m convinced, is the supplement regime, the amino acid neurotransmitter precursors I learned about in End Your Addiction Now.

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UPDATE:  As I did a final edit on this blog, the timer sounded and Doug woke up.  The pies were not done yet, so they still have a few minutes to bake.  Doug’s verdict on the cinnamon crisps was, “mmmmm….”

Occupational therapy

This was my worktable yesterday.  The yellow tone is an artifact of the lighting.  The background is stark white butcher paper.  I wish I could show you the true color of the amethysts, but that would require taking them out into the snow, sometime after the sun comes up.  That would defeat my purpose in taking up the work, and would not further the effort to turn that pound of small tumbled stones (the largest is about the size of a dry pinto bean) into pairs of earrings.

I’m working on jewelry now because it’s where my heart led me.  Work is what I do when I want to put my mind at ease.  I’ve chosen my various forms of “work” carefully, so that each of my occupations is an activity I enjoy.  At the times when I’m too sick to work, sometimes I play.  I often find the games or puzzles more stressful than work.  It is great, now, being this relatively healthy and energetic.  It took days to get the clutter moved off my worktable, but the effort was worth it.

I don’t count how many hours I spend on any project.  Time is not the issue.  I’ve returned several times to the sorting chore, first roughly sorting the big pile into smaller ones of different colors, sizes, shapes, and degrees of clarity.   This job always reminds me of childhood visits to my Uncle Harry in the Kansas State Hospital at Larned.  That was where I first heard of “occupational therapy.”   The staff would pour out big piles of mixed grains and beans on long tables and the patients would sort them into an assortment of containers salvaged from the kitchen.  When a patient would turn in his or her cottage cheese and margarine tubs, the corn, peas and beans would be dumped back into the big tub and mixed for the next batch of patients to sort.  It was a soothing activity for them, as it is for me.

Last night, I bagged up what was left of the center pile, the remaining amethysts too small, or too cloudy or just too oddball to meet my standards for jewelry.   Into another bag went the “gravel” pile, the broken pieces, ones that were mostly matrix, and stones of other types that had strayed into the mix before the product got to me.  Now the stones of deepest color and greatest clarity are center stage, and from that pile I’ve already selected about twenty pairs.  Pairing up stones is a matter of looking, focusing, poking and prodding, sliding one stone up next to another to see how the colors match, turning them to see if each has an end or an aspect enough like one on the other stone that when placed in their findings they will match.  It’s like working a big puzzle with no preset solution.

I’ve never had a whole pound of amethyst to work with at one time before.   Before the Minas Gerais discoveries turned amethyst from a precious stone to semi-precious, this would have been a treasure trove.  To me, each stage of the process adds value to the stones.  My pile of clear dark stones is worth more to me than the big mixed pile was, and each little box of matched pairs is worth more than the unsorted pile.  Later on, after findings are added and I’ve done the most tiresome chore, hanging the earrings on cards and sticking price tags on, they’ll no longer have value to me at all, and I’ll turn them over to Greyfox for sale.

The findings come much later.  When I’m through sorting tumbled amethyst, I have a small bag of citrine crystals, two pounds of celestite crystals, a pound each of tumbled rose quartz, moss agate, aquamarine, garnet, jade….  When I’ve got many matched pairs, then I start adding findings.  For a few winters, I’ve been too ill to do this job on this scale.  Last summer, I made a few earrings from time to time, to restock Greyfox’s stand.  I used up nearly all of the paired stones on hand, so now I’m starting afresh, with a greater variety of stones than ever before.  I love rocks.  Some of you have already seen my rock collection.  Here it is, again:

Merry Christmas

I do not desire to be offensive, and yet I wish to be truthful, and I know that the truth offends many people.  If you are one of those people, get out of here while the getting is good, because I’ve been considering a dose of Christmas truth for several days, and this comment on my last blog has triggered the decision to go ahead and dish it out:

If the writer, by “indulge” meant to nurture and care for myself, and meant by “good food”, the sort of healthy, non-addictive, non-allergenic things on my diet, then I’ve totally misread that comment and the end result is that it is a specious reason for indulging my impulse to tell the story of Christmas the way it really is.

As I interpret it, that comment is a facile attempt to give me (and by extension, the writer’s own self) permission to cheat on my diet, cheat on my health, and act in accord with most holiday revelers by feasting.  This might not be too harmful to some of you.  To me, it could be the beginning of the slide into terminal illness.  No, thanks.

That’s one of the BIG ways that religion in general sucks:  holidays, HOLY days, that self-indulgent celebrants turn into excuses for eating too much, drinking too much… you know how it goes.  Would a loving God want his followers glutting themselves into gout, GERD, heart attacks and diabetes?  Would your personal god want you to get drunk, make a fool of yourself, do things you’ll be embarrassed to hear about later?  How about blunting your higher reasoning and loosening your inhibitions to the point that you’re functioning on your reptilian brain, so you hurt people and alienate those important to you?  Not mine… my God wants me to take care of myself and those I love (which, when I get right down to it, is EVERYONE).

I do celebrate Christmas, but I know that the Mass of Christ that is held in December is not the anniversary of the birth of Jeshua ben Joseph, the Nazarene who embodied the Christos on Earth.  This holiday season we are celebrating the Roman Saturnalia, which the early church fathers co-opted (as they did the Festival of Ishtar or “Easter” in spring) because it was already there, being celebrated by the very heathens they hoped to convert.

This December 25th is not going to be the 2002nd birthday of baby Jesus.  When Joseph took Mary on the donkey to Bethlehem, it was because the Roman governor ordered it.  The emperor had ordered him to take a census.  That census was held during the summer of the year (in our Gregorian calendar) 4 BC.  Check it out.  Don’t take my word for it, or that of anyone else.  The Romans kept records.  Historians and scholars of the Bible know this, and I’ve never been able to understand why none of the churches seems to want to set the record straight.  Apparently it is just one of those things the priesthoods think it’s better for the common laity not to know.

I know Christ.  I live much of the time in communion with the Spirit of Truth.  I know people who knew the Master when he walked the Earth (I think I must have been busy elsewhere at the time, because I don’t recall Him myself) and they confirm my view of Him as a loving, compassionate person who valued the essence of things, not appearances.  He wouldn’t have eaten more than his fill at a feast.  He would have eaten what he needed and given the rest to those who had less.  I have a hard time even imagining Him drunk. 

With His inspired example to guide me, this week I will celebrate his birth along with the common herd (“Render unto Caesar…” he said.  He saw some value in following social forms and political rules.)  Then, as usual, next summer around the Leo/Virgo cusp, along with a smaller group of people, I will celebrate His 2007th birthday.

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P.S.  If you’re offended, you were warned, and now you will be even more offended.  Remember, it is equally spiritually unevolved to take offense as it is to give it.

P.P.S. (Mon., 12/23/2002) My dates were questioned, and in trying to find supporting documents online, I’ve found conflicting dates.  4 BC is in several sources.  Another source says the Roman Census was held in 8 BC, except for Herod’s part, which was a year later in 7 BC.  I think the conflicts could be due to the calendrical reforms that have taken place in the last few millennia.  So, in consequence, I’m not sure which birthday I’ll be celebrating next August, but I’ve yet to find a source that disputes August as the month.

Ahhh… when the X-tools come back after not being there for me, what a relief.  What would I do if I couldn’t blog?  I’d have to play solitaire or something… anything to avoid this mess.  Actually, this just might be the definitive sign of my final crackup, but I’m looking forward to tackling the mess.

Here’s my plan:  (1) Clear away the clutter on my jewelry work table and the floor around it and the computer desk.  (2) Find an empty outlet for my camera’s AC adapter so I won’t be burning batteries.  By that time, maybe Greyfox will be up and I can (3) break in the new camera taking pics of the things he wants to sell on eBay.  Alternatively, (3a) I’ll start making earrings.  I’ve got a few dozen pairs of stones already matched, and a few pounds of jade chips, small garnets, and other stones to be sorted into matched pairs.  That’s perfect work for a Virgo when she’d rather be sorting than thinking.

Thank you to each of you who responded to yesterday’s whine.  The comments and emails helped me put things in perspective, and miraculously some of the blogs I found last night on my SIR list were just the medicine this melancholy old redhead needed.  Nanny said it:  “’tis the season to be weepy.”  And Beek relieved the anxiety over the camera’s limitations with his expert advice.

It was white-knuckle time for me last night.  Greyfox made cheeseburgers and curly fries for himself and Doug, and baked one of those scrumptious Plush Pippin apple pies.  The day’s stresses had left me really vulnerable, but I stuck to my diet (which allows no cheeseburgers, fries, nor pies) until bedtime, and the world looks brighter today.  For a while there, I was teetering on the edge of a food binge, but I made it back from the brink.

Have a

glorious

Solstice,

whether it’s

Winter or

Summer

in your

hemisphere.

Warning:

WHINING AHEAD

Shit!!  The manual for my new camera says not to “store, transport or operate” below FREEZING.  Shit… shit… SHIT!!!  If it had said that in the specs I read online, or in any of the consumer reviews I studied, I wouldn’t have bought the damn thing.  Is that enough reason to get my money back?  …and it seemed like just what I wanted.  I spent months looking at cameras, and spent more money than I thought I should because this one was such a gem.  Yeah, right.  Is there ALWAYS a catch, a turd in the punchbowl, a fly in the soup?

I can answer that.  Yes, in my benighted life, yes there always is.  I’m sitting here, stupidly shedding tears over this.  “Steep learning curve”, one reviewer said about the menus I’ve been trying to learn to navigate.  I’ve been wasting my time trying to learn to use a fancy gadget so delicate (and useless) that the only times I’ll be able to take it outside are when I can get a lot of dandy closeups of mosquitoes.  I want closeups of frost crystals, dammit!  I want time exposures and movies of the Aurora Borealis!  If we have a power outage, I’ll have to remember to tuck the camera in my shirt or put it near, but not too near, the woodstove–because there is an upper temperature limit, too.

Okay, I know it’s not entirely fair to blame my weepy mood on the fair weather camera.  It has been a week of disappointments and losses, of work expended and then found to be pointless.  I began a project I’ve done many times before, gave it much time and tender loving care, only to have it fail and die as I watched impotently.   It all fell to shit.  Shit, shit, shit!  I know what acts of other people contributed to the failure, but did I do something wrong, is there something I could have done to prevent the failure?  I don’t know, so I’m hesitant to try again.

I’ll be philosophical and upbeat about all this later, I know.  I’ll have the tears dried and my voice back to normal by the time Doug wakes up or Greyfox returns from town.  I will finish cleaning up the mess from the failed project.  I might even just risk all and take the new camera out for a trial run in the crisp cold, when I get my guts back.  Who knows, it might work anyway.  I’ve violated other similar warnings before and gotten away with it.

If menopause were not a decade behind me already, I’d be tempted to ascribe the moody tears to hormones.   This crap is just so unlike me.  What is, IS.  I know that, and on most days I don’t rail pointlessly against reality or cry over things that don’t go my way.  Most days… not today.   

Ordinary everyday beauty

My last blog mentioned a, “path through the trees to the edge of the muskeg,” but it was too dark last night to show it to you.  The trees I mentioned are in this little grove bordering the road.  My home is across the road on the left, and the muskeg is just out of frame on the right.

I was cooking my breakfast late this morning (we all tend to sleep late in winter here) when I noticed the light on the frosty trees.  As I ate, I was hoping the light would last.  I suited up and got out there as fast as I could, but the scant winter sun was slipping away even as I headed down the road toward the cul de sac.

Our thermometer is optimistic.  It was probably nearer -10°C, but still  that’s warmer (about 20 degrees warmer) than last weekend.  I love when it warms up… just warms up, from what temp to whatever warmer temp, in winter numbers don’t matter:  warmer is better.

Greyfox’s first winter here included one major cold snap.  We had to do a water run at 40° below zero (F or C, forty below is forty below).  It had warmed up to zero F the next time we were at the spring and, schmoozing with the neighbor we encountered there, about the cold snap, Greyfox said, “Forty below makes zero seem warm.”  Indeed, it does.  Warm is warm; it’s all relative.

Pidney followed me.  She’s the one,  out of these three cats Mark left with us four years ago, who picked me as her primate.  I sleep on my side, with her snuggled against my tummy and my dog Koji snuggled up to my back.

It’s warm and cozy that way, but Koji is near seventy pounds.  Getting up with him weighting down the covers is hard, sometimes.  Getting up and disturbing Pidney’s sleep anytime is cause for complaint.  She’s a mouthy cat, the only one of the three with much to say.

This view to the south across the muskeg illustrates the low angle of the sun.  It’s midday here.  It won’t get much lower than this.  Even now, our house is in shade all day, the sun visible from there only through a few gaps in the trees.  The solstice is only a few days away.  My Ozzie friend Cat in Adelaide is anticipating sweltering days and is probably as appreciative of the receding sun as I am of seeing it come back this way.  Isn’t it neat the way celestial mechanics works?

Another angle on the muskeg, looking northwest from near the same POV as the south-facing shot above.  Between the tallest trees in the middle distance is the path mentioned above.

Someone had walked the whole length of the muskeg since the last snow.  There was a single set of big bootprints (old Army bunny boots) from as far as I could see to the south, and on from left to right across the scene above.

Taking the tracks as a sign that the ice was now thick enough to bear my weight, I followed them as far as the entrance to my little path homeward.  Pidney, seeing which way I was headed, ran on out ahead.  She leapt from bootprint to bootprint, a quick feline zigzag.   She was waiting on the doorstep, demanding to be let in, by the time I got there.

It started last night when we tried to fool the dog….

Koji does not like wearing his Gentle Leader head collar.  He always growls, and sometimes snarls or snaps when I try to put the loop over his snout.  But he has to wear it when we walk him, especially when it is icy, or he pulls us off our feet.   He’s an Alaskan sled dog, born to pull.  Last night Greyfox wanted to walk him.  Collaring Koji is my job.  Greyfox is afraid of him.

As Greyfox was getting into his coat and boots, I started to collar Koji, but the dog wasn’t going for it.  As we have done in similar times before, Greyfox went on out, and as Koji went nuts because he was left behind, I persuaded him to let me put his collar on.  Then I had to put on my boots and take Koji out to meet Greyfox.

That was when I noticed what a beautiful night it was–mackerel sky with a nearly full moon peeking through, and sparkling frost everywhere.  I didn’t know if the camera would capture it (still have not even put batteries in the new one… Doug says to abandon the manuals and just get the camera out and use it.  He may be on to something there.), but I went back in (in nightie and robe with my sno-jogs) and got the old digital shooter and gave it a try.

I got a little bit of frosty stuff down my collar, and more than a little of it was stuck in my hair and on shouders, etc,. when I got back in.  I took the path through the trees to the edge of the muskeg and took over a dozen shots of dim frosty beauty, none of which turned out.  When I turned the camera up to get the mackerel sky, the only thing it captured was the moon.  I took a couple of flash shots of the frosty trees for insurance, and then caught the one here, of the holiday lights in our front window, on my way back in.  Dammit, I hate these “pictures that got away” blogs.  Let’s hope I can do better with the new camera.

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