Wednesday, January 20, 2010


HELLO UP THERE


Spring is here, about three months early; here it is well into the third week of January at our relatively high elevation and it’s like May. Hasn’t snowed yet, the shiitake are bulging as though they have an imminent agenda, the forsythia buds are swelling in rather a hurry, as though metaphorically running for a train; the jinchoge is reddening fast also, practically saying I'm late, I'm late, for a very important etc.

I can practically lay on the deck in my shorts; the thermal boots and snow tires and firewood are looking clunky and quaint, the vegetables appear to be expecting summer this afternoon or maybe tomorrow, the frogs are quietly looking at their watches, I heard a warbler sing, I had to stand there and spread my arms and shout “WAIT A MINUTE!” to the universe at large, as I am wont to do, though not often in public, but does anything listen? No-o-o-o.

Here I am, all by myself trying to get nature back on track and winter in the icy groove, but it’s too big a job for just one man waving his arms and making cosmic gestures; we have to get together on this. Anybody up there listening?

9 comments:

Tabor said...

I agree...change like this is not so good for Mother Nature. She needs to stay in her grove. We are now getting temps in the 50s F after being in the low 30s for weeks on end.

Vintage Knit Crochet said...

Mother Nature, being the woman she is, is willed to do as she pleases, regardless of what other think. Just have to love her.

Anonymous said...

My cats have asked for plane tickets after reading your blog...

They are so through with waiting for me to turn on the electric blanket I warm up my bed with every night, 'We are old,' they mumble, 'unlike those confounded new kittens you have chosen to resque...'

My son, the one I soooo carefully nurtured and trained to grow, flourish even, and fly away from the (MY) nest, and has flown back so comfortably, brings home an extra little electric heater for my old bones. Oh heck, I'm not even that old, its those darn genes (Thanks Dad, where ever you are haunting this week, and the inherent arthritis.

My daughter, still thankfully flying solo, calls to inquire if my skin, like hers, has fallen victim to the dry air, has it started to itch so bad you just want to scratch through your skin to the bones? (Ah, yuh, I am 22 years older than you, it started LAST month, Thank You Very Much for reminding me, now where is that skin lotion....).

The pond is still frozen, strangers arrive to skate every afternoon, a joy to watch, from my kitchen, as I hover over the oven that is heating dinner at 450 and is throwing off quite a bit of radient heat......

It will be another eleven weeks at least until the workers arrive to prepare the soil for spring planting on this farm.

I can still see the peach orchard,coyote tracks weaving in and around the trees, nothing is even close to budding.

No spring robins yet. Just the HUGE, fat year round ones that lurk in the bare oak just outside the kitchen windows, staring... until I throw out old bread.

And I sit, crouched over this computer, my lifeline lately to the human race, dressed in layers, a kitten on my shoulder purring in my ear, and old geyser on my lap trying to crawl into my sweater, yet I think, life is good. I'm still here...

Anonymous said...

And as an afterthought......

I have gotten so far into the just trying to stay warm so the long bones of my body quit feeling as though they are ready to crack, I havn't started thinking about ordering seeds for the flower garden, chemicals to straighten out the ph of the pond, where I want my reaised herb beds my son has promised to build out of boards from the barn that collapsed during a particularily nasty wind storm in December, and suddenly I have forgotten how cold I am....

Just goes to show ya, hunching over this computer is a good thing for me, and PureMountain is an even better thing. It brings me to a different place, and forces me to remember the world is a small, extremely large, place...

Joni

Robert Brady said...

Joni, you have a blog? If not you should start one and keep us posted on all these interesting-sounding things where you are, and musings...

Shirley Sunman said...

yes please; Joni get a blog. Write for us to imagine somewhere we've never been and a life we've never had.

Takayama is full of snow and very cold

Anonymous said...

Blog-less, clue-less, now I feel deprived....eek. I did think about a dot com at one point, but let the idea slide for one of the same reasons I began reading this blog. Writers cramp... I am so trying to finish a book I began before life hit the fan with four death bongs in straight order, and left me flailing, wondering how to fill the black holes that yawned to the rear of my life. And wouldn't quit yawning.

R. you have served to fill gaping spaces, something in your writing raises the Me I was, and wanted to remain.

I actually thought moving to this farm would do it, but something has been missing, until I started reading your blog. And when I finally felt the courage to make a comment, I did some actual shivering with trepitdation, wondering how I , blog-less wonder that I am, would be received.

I never expected this delightful reception, nor can I thank you all enough for being interested in me, a self-described train wreck!

I floated for a long time, with in my own soul, in self imposed solitude, the isolation appeared to help put life's catatrophic events into some 'semblence of order, but the why of it all jst wouldn't reveal itself.

It is begining to do that now, and I wonder if solitude was a mistake. Just for future reference.

For now my mission is to finish rounding up the feral cats that have been dropped off here (oh, it's a farm, they'll be fine....) so that I can have them neutered. I have three female strangers living in the back entry way at the moment. Though two new ones have appears in the last month....

And to keep reading this blog that reminds me of home, though it is so far away. Hoping that by the time I figure out why it does this, my writers cramp will cease to etch empty slash marks in my grey matter, and I havn't made any enimies with my banal comments...!

I really like you all.

Joni

Robert Brady said...

Joni,

You don't need a dotcom to start, just go to blogger.com and follow the arrows; you can add a dotcom later if you want. Seems iike you have an eloquent river there, looking for a sea. You can post bits of your book in your blog too, get some feedback... If you need any help on this "tech stuff," just email me at rb(at)purelandmountain.com

Shirley Sunman said...

joni,
my blog started simply because I had acres of writing and no one wanted to publish what i'd written ...