On cold weather and thankfulness

Today, 18 days until Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for flannel-lined jeans and warm sweaters. The high temperatures today are in the mid-20s. Tomorrow the high is forecast to be in the teens and with an overnight low in the single digits. It's not even mid-November! I'm also thankful that neither of the dog walkers slipped and fell on the icy road this morning. Walking along the ditch edge was fine. Something to keep in mind should your township ever decide to pave your gravel road. We're still on the bubble about whether or not we're thankful the road's been paved.

We're thankful the Son-In-Law got a small 8 point buck yesterday, opening day. He was hunting in his own "back yard." I'm thankful for his success and that he's creating some great memories at the house he and Daughter Person bought almost a year ago. Those memories will be, I suspect, very different than the ones I have from hunting with friends out of several different deer camps in Northern New England (New Hampshire and Vermont) and Northern Minnesota. Not better, not worse, just very different. I'm thankful I learned the concept that "there's more than one path through the woods" and wish I were better at remembering that more frequently.

unless it's large and deep, or flowing, it's iced in

Photo by J. Harrington

From what we saw driving around today, only the largest, deepest lakes are still open. Large but shallow water bodies are all frozen over. I'm thankful for heated seats and a heated steering wheel in the Jeep. If you're getting a picture that Winter is a season I tolerate more than celebrate, you're correct. I'm thankful that Winter in Minnesota is only about 6 months long. At least it diminishes the road construction going on in the area.

do I want to allow this again this year?

Photo by J. Harrington

The chickadees and downy and hairy woodpeckers are thankful we filled and hung up the suet feeder. We're still debating whether to hang feeders in front of the house this Winter. We suspect that the deer that came to feed on the sunflower seeds may well be the ones that returned come Spring and munched down our black chokeberry bushes. We're thankful there's anything left of those bushes and will remember to spray repellant on them now that rain season seems ended for the year.

(We know that today is the 44th anniversary of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Past postings have said about all we can on that tragedy.

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* = ship's bell rung)

Fortuna

By Thomas Carlyle

The wind blows east, the wind blows west, 

And the frost falls and the rain: 

A weary heart went thankful to rest, 

And must rise to toil again, ’gain, 

And must rise to toil again. 

The wind blows east, the wind blows west, 

And there comes good luck and bad; 

The thriftiest man is the cheerfulest; 

’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad, 

’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad. 

The wind blows east, the wind blows west; 

Ye shall know a tree by its fruit: 

This world, they say, is worst to the best;— 

But a dastard has evil to boot, boot, 

But a dastard has evil to boot. 

The wind blows east, the wind blows west; 

What skills it to mourn or to talk? 

A journey I have, and far ere I rest; 

I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk, 

I must bundle my wallets and walk. 

The wind does blow as it lists alway; 

Canst thou change this world to thy mind? 

The world will wander its own wise way; 

I also will wander mine, mine, 

I also will wander mine.

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