Pining for locally grown decorations

Rarely, but every once in a while, a small dash of common sense strikes us in a timely fashion. This week we're slowly getting Christmas decorations in order. Along the South side of the drive, a number of pine saplings have grown where we don't want them. They've sprung up close enough together to at least partially block the discharge from the snow blower. We've now decided some of them will get cut tomorrow to fill in gaps around the decorations near the front porch, the decorations that are under the net lights (see yesterday's photo). Until this morning we had just been contemplating cutting those pines and throwing them on the brush pile to be burned. We feel much better having thought of an interim use. Might be some of our old New England "use it up, wear it out" background getting satisfied.

at least some of these will help decorate Christmas this year

Photo by J. Harrington

To be honest, someone, probably the Better Half, used pine branches for filler last year (or the year before) in the decorations, so that's most likely where we got the idea. We're just pleasantly surprised that this year we thought of cutting some pines before all the Christmas decorating was done.

Today we were grateful that we were awake this morning and looking our the window in time to watch a beautiful sunrise climb up over a band of clouds. We played a little with our camera but weren't really satisfied with any of the results. There seems to be something about digital cameras that dislikes the reds of sunrises and sunsets. Whenever we take pictures, they look washed out. After watching the Eastern sky for awhile, we then enjoyed the sunlight slowly descending down the tree tops behind the house. That didn't happen until half an hour or more after the sun came over the Eastern horizon. Seeing the fresh start to a day is often one of the best times of day as far as we're concerned. We're grateful we saw the sun today for a brief while first thing.

Home

Bruce Weigl

I didn’t know I was grateful
            for such late-autumn
                        bent-up cornfields

yellow in the after-harvest
             sun before the
                        cold plow turns it all over

into never.
            I didn’t know
                        I would enter this music

that translates the world
             back into dirt fields
                         that have always called to me

as if I were a thing
              come from the dirt,
                          like a tuber,

or like a needful boy. End
             lonely days, I believe. End the exiled
                           and unraveling strangeness.

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