Umm.. Huh?  It’s morning, it’s winter.. there are all kinds of walks.

Today’s new word.. ‘nose gun’.

As in ‘I don’t know if I have a nose gun.  My last one came with one’.

This prompts me to look up.  ‘What the hell is a nose gun?’ I ask. He has come downstairs with the manual for his new chainsaw and now sits at the table with it open in front of him. I now know that it is part of whatever is needed to grease the nose. Why would he need another.. do nose guns come in different sizes? Do they need to be reloaded? If so, how do you do it? So many questions and I’m still drinking coffee.

Ten minutes before, he’d asked me, ‘Did you know that if you use the bidet before you pump the water in the morning, your asshole doesn’t slam shut’? (We pump our water from a very cold, very deep well to a cistern.)  Why yes, as a matter of fact, I did know that.

Willy knows when it is too cold to go out without me opening the door to illustrate.  HE JUST KNOWS.  Certainly, he is able to jump up onto the counter where the thermometer sits, but I have yet to teach him how to read it. I’ve decided I need to keep a record of his temperature choices. Apparently, yesterday’s 12 degrees was too cold, but today’s 18 (with feel like 12 degree) is borderline acceptable.  Umm.. Huh?

I hope you’ve enjoyed your holidays in the best way possible.  If nothing else, I hope you spent a relaxed few days doing something you enjoyed.  It has been such an odd time. My sense of days has been all mixed up.  Friday felt like Saturday, Saturday like Sunday and Sunday morning was, I’m not sure.  I had Monday chores on my mind but I felt like I was beginning the weekend all over again.  Even the weather was confusing.  It snowed, I shoveled, then it rained for 24 hrs and absolutely everything melted. The frozen pond had icy waves blowing across it.  The temps dropped, it snowed again, and winter may have returned.  

Thursday evening I cast on stitches for a little knitted bird.  Friday, I did another.  Saturday, I knit a blue one. Sunday a pale turquoise bird began to take shape. They are great fun and very fast to knit.  I’ve gathered some small branches that blew down from my big old yellow birch for them to hang from when a Christmas tree won’t do any longer.  The pattern calls for dk or worsted weight yarn.  Just scraps.  Curiously, I don’t have much in that weight.  I may have to spin some up to feed my current obsession.  

This week will be full of end of year paperwork and finishing projects that I don’t want to carry into a new year. And, there will be more birds.

There are times when I need to intentionally help myself put my emotions into perspective.  Usually a good long walk helps. I can almost always find solace in the woods.  Acceptance and significance can require a bit more. I need big. The vastness of a dark starry sky, the mountains in the distance, the endless horizon of the desert, and especially for me, the ocean.  The only thing I can honestly say I crave when I am in the hills, is the sea.  

Last weekend we went for a good long walk along the shore. The air, the sound of the waves..

..what’s left behind.  I wonder where this log traveled from, what land did it shade?

We can guess what’s around the corner, but never be sure.  They say we’re in for a snow storm.  The first big one of the season.  High winds, blizzard conditions.  Beauty and a lot of clean up.  Don’t blow away.