Signs and scenes of the season

It's Small Business Saturday, but you know that, right? We hauled ourselves (the Better  Half [BH] and I) over to our local bookstore, Scout & Morgan, where we purchased a book or two while the BH went to the food co-op next door and picked up a few essentials.

the kind of snow flakes we prefer, no shoveling

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we were successful at buying absolutely nothing [Even dinner was made of leftover turkey in sandwiches.] and even managed to get ourselves into the fresh air for an hour or so. Today, after returning from small business shopping, we managed to get the outside Christmas lights hung. (Only one animal [the human currently typing this] was slightly injured in the process and he should recover soon.) Since this is our second sunny day in a row, we're again enjoying the sparkly snow flakes the BH hung in the window earlier this week when all was cloudy and dreary. Despite political and economic and public health madness, benign spirits of the season are slowly taking command.

Earlier today we saw a flock of 5 or 6 swans headed northerly to ???. Yesterday we noticed a whitetail cross our road about a quarter of a mile North of the house. On Thanksgiving, we drove past a flock of tom turkeys a couple of miles North of our house. They were foraging the fields of a truck farm whose season has passed.

As long as we stay healthy, we're going to focus on spending more time outside (snowblowing doesn't count). Fresh air and sunshine help a lot to maintain some semblance of balance in our mental and emotional health. We don't expect things to turn around on a dime come January 21, 2021, although that will mark a major milestone in improvements conditions and one of the better belated Christmas presents in years.

Changing the Front Porch Light for Thanksgiving

By Jared Carter

To balance there, again, in the early dark,

three rungs up on the old stepladder,

afraid to go any higher, it wobbles so—

to reach out and find the first set-screw

stripped of its thread, barely holding the lip

in place—to stretch even farther, twisting

the next one to break the rust, turning

the last with the tips of your fingers until

the white globe drops down smooth and round

in your hands, and you see inside a pool

of intermingled wings and bodies, so dry

it stirs beneath your breath. To watch them

flutter, again, across the grass, when you

climb down and shake them out in the wind.

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