The Plowmen by Robert Frost

A plow, they say, to plow the snow.
They cannot mean to plant it, no--
Unless in bitterness to mock
At having cultivated rock.

Wood Pile Nov 25

Got a very late start building the woodpile this year. Very late.

I am thankful to have close to 5 cord of wood stacked up, all acquired within the last 4 weeks. The generosity of friends, a willingness to ask around, a fair amount of industrious activity and...voila!

Let's keep an eye on it as the season winds around, shall we? We can watch it slowly disappear as it transforms into cozy nights in the midst of a bitter season.

Signs of Spring

The frost heaves were bad this past month. After a couple weeks of abnormally warm temps, the roads are starting to calm down a bit. Both my truck's suspension, and my spine are grateful. Besides which, it is not easy to dodge the bumps, work the clutch, shift AND not spill the coffee on your lap.

Whatever you do, don't put the cup between your legs. Just sayin'

Also, town meeting was last Saturday. I was unable to actually attend. Instead, I stood in as temporary Girl Scout Leader overseeing the sale of Girl Scout Cookies outside the meeting. Filling in for my sick bride. As town meetings go, it apparently lacked the entertainment value of some past years. 31 warrant articles dispatched in a mere 3.5 hours.

Now the floods are here. 3 days of torrential rains. Rivers cresting over flood stage. Roads washing out. Neighborhoods evacuated. No need to declare a state of emergency, says the Governor. The SOE from the windstorm 2 weeks ago is still in force. Now that's a relief.

The blue lines are running to and fro in the woods, carrying that precious sugar sap down to the old fashioned plastic barrels so the farmers can lift them onto the flatbed with a propane powered forklift and bring them to the sugar house where the water will be boiled off by a heat from a mini nuclear reactor core. Don't worry, it doesn't give off any greenhouse gases, so it won't contribute to global warming.

And finally - mud.

Just another typical New Hampshire spring.

Seasonal Accommodationists

From We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickinson Rich.

It may be a little late in the season to comment on winter, but I found this an engaging passage in a wholly engaging book about life in the deep north woods of Maine in the early 40’s. I recommend it for fine stories, winsome style, and worthy reflections on both the things of nature, and the nature of things.

After I grew up, I still hated (winter), and I think that now I know the reason why. In civilization we try to combat winter. We try to modify it so that we can continue to live the same sort to life that we live in summer. We plow the sidewalks so we can wear low shoes. And the road so we can use cars. We heat every enclosed space and then, inadequately clad, dash quickly from one little pocket of hot air through a bitter no-man’s land of cold to another. We fool around with sun lamps, trying to convince our skins the air is really August, and we eat travel0worn spinach in an attempt to sell the same idea to our stomachs. Naturally , it doesn’t work very well. You can neither remodel nor ignore a thing as big as winter.

In the woods, we don’t try to. We just let winter be winter, and any adjustments that have to be made, we make in ourselves and our way of living. We have to. The skin between outdoors and indoors here is so much thinner than it is even in a small town, that it’s sometimes hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. We can’t dress, for example, for a day in the house. Such a thing doesn’t exist. We have to go outdoors continually – to get in wood, to go to the john, to run down to the other house and put wood on the kitchen fire, to get water, to hack a piece of steak off the frozen deer hanging in the woodshed, or for any one of a dozen other reasons. Outdoors is just another bigger, colder room. When we get up in the morning we dress with the idea that we’ll be using this other room all day. When we step into it we make the concession of putting on mittens if we’re really going to be there
long enough.

Dispatching Advent

Well, I pretty much missed the chance to make comments on Advent, which is really too bad. Although observing Advent has never been a great strength of mine, it has been growing as a presence in my mind over the years. It’s value may, I think, lie powerfully in the idea of making the Feast that much greater by virtue of the preceding fast. If Advent is no more than the run up to Christmas, it really differs little from the practices of the infidel hordes who scurry madly about in a mass-induced hysteria, all the while claiming “Peace, Peace on earth!!!” It is a ludicrous irony.

Now that I am beginning to see Advent as the long night of waiting, the filling of lamps and the trimming of wicks, in preparation for the coming of the master (a la the parable of the 10 virgins)…then it begins to make sense. If it is the companion season of Lent, where we prepare our hearts to receive the Great Miracle, then it makes sense. I think I may be moving toward defining for myself a true rule or practice for Advent. I have about a year to figure it out. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Also, when Advent is treated this way, then a 12 Day time of Feasting really does appeal. I’m kind of liking the idea.