Sequestered, Week 258 (CCLVIII)

Friday Ramble - Getting Through March, Sheepishly

March came in like a lioness, and then the lioness stepped away for a few days. In her absence, plucky birds paired off amorously, and village starlings sang merrily, pretending they were robins and enjoying the pretense. It rained, and for a day or two, there was the possibility of a maple syrup run. Thoughts of springtime danced in my sconce, and there were gardening magazines, agricultural annuals, nursery catalogs and seed packets on every surface in the house.

Alas, the halcyon days were brief. Winter made a gleeful return late yesterday, the north wind howling in the rafters and tossing heaps of snow against the doors of the garden shed. There were clouds of blowing snow, and clumps, tumps and desiccated grasses vanished after their fleeting emergence out of the white stuff. Snowdrifts took a deep sigh of relief and stopped melting. Overnight, the village became a sea of ice, and walking this morning is worrisome, downright treacherous.

In other years, migratory birds had returned by now, but Canada geese, ducks, herons and loons will be late coming home this year because there is no open water anywhere and nothing for them to eat. On walks, we listen for them anyway.

What is one to do at such times? I drink copious amounts of espresso and tea. I spend a lot of time reading and scribbling. In the wee hours, I plot new bee gardens and beds of roses, research heirloom vegetables, lay out the design for another quilt. I cultivate forbearance and don't look out the window when snow falls again, hoping ardently that Lady March will get her act together and morph into a lamb, darn it.

At the end of winter, one becomes a tad maudlin. When a friend in the Lanark Highlands told me a few days ago that lambs are now being born in her magnificent old log barn, I was sad. I felt sorry for the poor wee beasties who were coming into the world in such bleak circumstances. What a harrowing start to life.

Enough is enough. Rain would be just fine, and it is certainly easier to shovel than snow. There is one thing about the weather though - night skies are fabulous when they are clear. There are flaming sunsets and moons one can almost reach up and touch, planets dancing in the sky at dusk, dippers of starlight strewn by handfuls from vast, streaming cosmic cauldrons. Simply magnificent.

While I was outside this morning shoveling the veranda, a friend walked by with her Labrador (Sunny) and stopped to talk for a few minutes. We had not seen much of each other in recent weeks, and it was pleasant to stand there (shuffling from foot to foot in the cold) and catch up. I think I can hang in for a while longer.

Thursday Poem - You Can't Be Too Careful

Spring storm and hail of ice cubes
pummels my town and no other.
There was a time when townspeople
would call this fall the wrath of God
or work of witches. A lower profile
may have saved some crones
renowned for bitter herbs, odd dames
you went to in the woods for troubles.
But some would go on being busybodies
and scolds dragged out, dunked, drowned
or hung like limp, forgotten fruit
from gallows trees. Scarecrows and
cautionary tales. And truly the crows
flee from our town screaming
blue murder, scarier than a siren.
Even in these enlightened times,
some of us still go warily,
keeping secret our wild simples,
asking nothing for our quirky blessings.

Dolores Stewart Riccio
(from The Nature of Things)

Thursday Poem - You Can't Be Too Careful

Spring storm and hail of ice cubes
pummels my town and no other.

There was a time when townspeople
would call this fall the wrath of God
or work of witches. A lower profile
may have saved some crones
renowned for bitter herbs, odd dames
you went to in the woods for troubles.
But some would go on being busybodies
and scolds dragged out, dunked, drowned
or hung like limp, forgotten fruit
from gallows trees. Scarecrows and
cautionary tales. And truly the crows
flee from our town screaming
blue murder, scarier than a siren.
Even in these enlightened times,
some of us still go warily,
keeping secret our wild simples,
asking nothing for our quirky blessings.

Dolores Stewart Riccio

(from The Nature of Things)

Winter's Return, Hopefully Brief

Wordless Wednesday - Snowy

Just a Little Snow

Temperatures rise, the sun shines, snowdrifts disappear, things start to pop up in the garden, and one thinks (hopefully) that spring has arrived in the north, but wait... 

After several days of relatively balmy weather, we pulled the draperies open yesterday morning to leaden skies and falling snow. The tulips and daffodils sprouting in the garden were poking up through white stuff and doing their best, but they did not look happy. 

After twittering their displeasure and grabbing a few sunflower seeds from the feeders, the usual morning visitors retreated to the depths of the cedar hedge and hunkered down there, looking miserable. We (Beau and I) were of like mind.

What to do? We wrapped up warmly anyway and went for a long walk around the village, clad in parkas and with our collars turned up against the squall. The weather was only a few degrees below freezing, but it was damp, and the north wind was bitterly cold. Then we came home to tea and buttered waffles.

It was a fine afternoon for huddling in a corner with a mug of something hot and Anthony Horowitz's marvelous Moonflower Murders. The novel starts off on the island of Crete, and moves to England after a chapter or so, but in neither place is there snow, as far as I know. A sunny Greek terrace overlooking the Aegean Sea is perfect for such a dreary day. Mezze anyone? Moussaka? A few glasses of ouzo or retsina?

Friday Ramble - Just Another Cold Morning

Temperatures rise, and temperatures fall, snow comes, and snow goes. Icicles dangling from the roof melt and shatter, then form again, chiming like bells as they move through their lovely, glossy life cycles. This morning, the north wind shrieks in the eaves and clatters across the roof tiles. Closer to the frozen earth, it dances up the street with its freight of ossified twigs, desiccated leaves and pine needles. 

In recent weeks I have never known what to wear when rambling with Beau, a parka, a light anorak or a raincoat. A few days ago, we wandered for miles in light clobber with nary a scrap of ice in sight, and this morning it is bitterly cold, ice lurking under every frill of snow. Out with parkas, toques, mukluks and heavy gloves again, and off we go.

Snow fell steadily during the night, and I will tackle the fallen white stuff as soon as I can see what I am doing, but first there will be mugs of hot stuff and buttered waffles. The snow blower is ready to go, and my trusty green shovel waits by the front door along with salt and sand. Village drains are frozen, and when melting begins there will be lagoons out in the street wide enough and deep enough to float a canoe. 

What does one do indoors on such a day when she is not outside heaving snow? Bread, molasses cookies and cauldrons of homemade soup are being considered, and Joni Mitchell is on the sound system. Parking myself in a comfortable corner with a beaker of something hot, a good book and a shawl or three seems like a plan. Whatever else is going on in my life, there is always a recipe cavorting in my noggin, a mug of tea, a shawl and a stack of reading material nearby.

Catching a glimpse of myself as I passed a mirror this morning, I couldn't help thinking I looked like one of the characters in Jean Giraudoux's play, The Madwoman of Chaillot. I have always loved his creation (and the film version which starred Katherine Hepburn), and I would have enjoyed knowing the Street Singer, The Ragpicker, The Sergeant, The Sewer Man and The Flower Girl, all the other outcasts, eccentrics and dreamers who were the madwoman's companions. I would have liked hanging out with her fellow madwomen too, and I probably would have fit into the group nicely.

All I need to blend in is a voluminous skirt, a moth-eaten cardigan, fingerless gloves and a tatty hat. Perhaps a trip to my local thrift shop is in order?

Another Snow Day

Friday Ramble - January's Performing Arts

A rowdy north wind cavorts across the roof, rollicking through sleeping trees and shrubberies in the garden, making the frozen oak branches ring like bells.

Icicles dangle from the eaves behind the little blue house in the village, glossy confections streaked with gold and silver and filled with tiny bubbles. Once in a while, the wind shakes one loose, and the burnished shards sing like birds as they tumble toward the frozen earth below. The exuberant gusts also dislodge pine needles, brittle twigs and shards of melting ice on the roof, and they skate across the shingles, then plummet clattering over the edge into the snowdrifts wrapping the house. The whole thing sounds like an excerpt from Mike Oldfield's beautiful Tubular Bells.

The icicles communicate the colors and shapes of this day perfectly without any help from me at all. They rattle, chatter and chime, sing Gilbert and Sullivany duets with the wind, (mostly bits from Iolanthe), pretend they are cathedral bells at other times or recite epic stanzas from the Poetic Eddas. The Norse elements of their performance are particularly appropriate - at times it has been snowy enough here for Ragnarök, and we wondered if this is the Fimbulwinter, the walloping winter to end them all. 

Advised to remain indoors, I slip outside for a few minutes anyway and snap photos of nearby trees and icicles, chimneys and sky. Wrapped up and looking for all the world like a yeti (or an abominable something anyway), I stand in the wonderfully pebbled snow in the garden and capture a few images, try to figure out how in the world I can describe everything, the perfect light, the burnished hues of the icicles, the emeralds of the evergreens, the blues and violets of the snow, the buttery siding on my neighbor's kitchen wall, the scarlet of a male cardinal as it flies into the cedar hedge. 

With all the elemental performances being given this morning, no words, or at least not very many words, are needed from this old hen. I can just stand here in a snowdrift with the camera, get out of its way (and my own way) and let it see the world without trying to impose on its thoughtful and loving journey.

Out of the blue, a thought comes as I turn to go back inside before anyone notices that I am no longer in there, but rather out here. It is the images that are capturing me this morning, and not me capturing them. It's a Zen thing.

And then it snowed

All Together Now, Winter and Spring

Happy April! Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

Thursday Poem - You Can't Be Too Careful

Spring storm and hail of ice cubes
pummels my town and no other.
There was a time when townspeople
would call this fall the wrath of God
or work of witches. A lower profile
may have saved some crones
renowned for bitter herbs, odd dames
you went to in the woods for troubles.
But some would go on being busybodies
and scolds dragged out, dunked, drowned
or hung like limp, forgotten fruit
from gallows trees. Scarecrows and
cautionary tales. And truly the crows
flee from our town screaming
blue murder, scarier than a siren.
Even in these enlightened times,
some of us still go warily,
keeping secret our wild simples,
asking nothing for our quirky blessings.

Dolores Stewart Riccio, from The Nature of Things

Sequestered - Week 149 (CXLIX)

A Little Melting Going On

A little melting has been going on in the village in recent days, and suddenly there were vivid colors and wild musics everywhere. Cardinals and redpolls cavorted in the garden, and the bells in the old crabapple tree oscillated back and forth with abandon. A murder of jubilant crows awakened us around four-thirty every morning with their raucous antics and ribald ditties. Puddles in the street were fringed with melting ice, reflecting rooflines, buildings and parked vehicles, buildings, blue sky and clouds. On our early walks, sunlight, blue slush and old bricks made fetching visual arrangements.

Snow relocated by village plows and my snow blower this winter was several feet high a few days ago but has dwindled and is down a foot or two. Snow on the sundeck was too heavy for me to dislodge with fulcrum and shovel last week, but the white stuff has disappeared completely, and I can see bare boards through the kitchen window.

Imbolc has come and gone, and springtime is certainly happening in some parts of the world, but it won't be making an appearance here for some long time. Old Man Winter is already rattling his icy talons again, roaring through bare trees in the garden, chilling us to the bone and delighting in our glum expressions.

In such weathers, I feel cauldrons of soup, turkey meatloaf, casseroles and sourdough bread coming on, also molasses cookies and scones. Stirring up such things is comforting when temperatures plummet, the wind howls in the rafters, and one can't see her neighbor's veranda for wind and tumbling snow.

The teapot is warming, the kettle is burbling, and my favorite mug awaits. Time to break out Sarah Leah Chase's New England Open-House Cookbook and hatch a few culinary plots, also Alexandra Stafford's Bread Toast Crumbs and The Art of Simple Food (I & II) by Alice Waters. Yum, we can do this.

Another Snow Day

Sequestered - Week 145 (CXLV)

The Sound of Winter

Snow Day

Wordless Wednesday - First Snow