December 19, 2002

• 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.

  • 9:05 pm
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