A stuttering freeze-thaw cycle

This morning we headed for St. Paul and our dental appointment. Driving through Forest Lake we saw a line of what we think were Canada geese, up at noise-bleed heights, headed on a line that looked like it pointed back to the open waters of the lake. The weather this month has frozen many smaller water bodies, then the ice had melted again, and now it's headed back toward ice-covering. Years that are less spastic usually see shallower, smaller ponds freeze first, concentrating the waterfowl still hanging around on the larger, deeper waters that will be among the last to freeze.

soon, we think, ice will cover the ponds for the season

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sunrise River pools we drove past this morning are as full as ever we've seen them in Spring-time during snowmelt. Next Spring may be very interesting, depending on Winter's precipitation amounts and any January thaw. Although the forecast projects a colder, wetter "La Nina" Winter, we've reached a point at which we're going to take it one day at a time. Seems we've read somewhere or other that that kind of approach may even be good for us. In that vein, we wish each and everyone one of you a safe, healthy, quiet holiday season. With luck and forbearance, enjoying peaceful, quiet holidays, including Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays, may mean that no one will get crushed or trampled in this year's efforts to get the biggest and best deal on whatever is the bright shiny object of distraction at the moment (blogs the blogger who is slowly filling the family homestead with stacks and shelves of books and fly-fishing paraphernalia).

On Winter's Margin

by Mary Oliver

On winter’s margin, see the small birds now
With half-forged memories come flocking home
To gardens famous for their charity.
The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins
Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.

With half a loaf, I am the prince of crumbs;
By snow’s down, the birds amassed will sing
Like children for their sire to walk abroad!
But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk
Who floats alone beyond the frozen vines;
And what I dream of are the patient deer
Who stand on legs like reeds and drink that wind; -

They are what saves the world: who choose to grow
Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor. 

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