Jigsaw Puzzle

 It was my turn in the grocery check out line.   The checkout clerk greeted me w/ "How is your day going?"  I was in a talkative mood so I told her.  "Great so far.  I talked w/ Waste Management and they are going to pick up my garbage on my side of the road this winter."  Last week I'd gotten text messages from Waste Management two consecutive days that they were running late and would pick up my garbage on the next day.  As I said, the garbage can on the opposite side of the road was now buried up to it's cover in a bank of snow - partially from the snowstorm and partially from the county's snow plow.  On the third day, I managed to extract the bin from the drift, left it on my side of the roadway, and messaged Waste Management letting them know what I'd done and to please give me a call.   I knew calling Waste Management's help line wouldn't be of any use.  I'd tried that last year and the Arizona based hot line reassured me they would fix my issue but the local guys said they didn't care what the hotline said.  No call back yet from the local Waste Management so I drove the couple of miles over for a face to face.  Coordinator Nikki said she understood my predicament completely and would talk w/ the drivers when they got back from their routes.  She'd text me tomorrow.  The grocery checker didn't look up but mumbled a "uh huh" as if she was listening so I continued.  "Then I went to the Animal Shelter and made a donation."   The animal shelter had moved since the last time I'd been there.  They are mentioned often in the Sheriff's Report so I thought I should know where they were - just in case.  GPS got me there.  Didn't seem right to just say I wanted to see the facility so I gave them a donation.  The cashier was checking the price of my baking potatoes but managed a 'yep'.    "I treated myself to breakfast at the Toad House." I continued talking.  As I came into the city I'd stopped there for a latte and scone to-go and munched as I drove around. The checker announced my total and I paid.  Figured after all my prattling she'd be more careful about how she greeted customers.  No, she asked the guy behind me the same question.   Must be she's a glutton for punishment.

Calendar

 

The holiday season is over.  Time to do start up tasks for the New Year:

• Replaced the calendars.  I bought them back in August but remembered exactly where I put them.  In Haven, the calendar for the year is wildlife by Charlie Harper.  At first I thought his work was Cubist but looked him up and it's called Minimal Realism.  Reminds me a lot of  the Lamanozov figures I collected so assume this is my preference when it comes to art.  There is also the white board calendar which has to be wiped clean and redone.   I write the name of the month at the top.  Last year, all months were written in German.  This year all of the months will be in Spanish.  A small thing but I figure this way sooner or later I'll know the months in both languages.
• Packed away the blatantly Christmas decorations: the hanging sock by the fireplace, the santa figurines, the creche.  Everything else like the red balls, candles, greenery, snowmen, etc. remain as decor until spring comes and they will be replaced w/ pink bunnies and flowers.
• Pulled up my 2025 on-line file of yearly stats and noted that last year the 'new' plants/creatures I found here were a yellow-legged millipede, a yellow parasol mushroom, a maple spanworm moth, and a river otter.  Not sure if I should count the otter since I didn't get a pic of it but fairly sure that's what I saw in Gorgeous Gorge.  Also noted I volunteered over 150 hours, had guests for 35 days, and did everything on my monthly-to-do list except install a new furnace filter.  Since I run the air conditioner probably no more than 10 days each year, not having a new furnace filter isn't too terrible.   I used the 2025 file to create a 2026 file.  I deleted all of the contents out of the new 2026 file and am ready to keep track of this year. 
• Printed out and pasted '2025' on the plastic bin I throw receipts and other info in for the year.  I'll keep it around until I submit my fed/state taxes, throw a copy of the form in, click the top shut, and it will take it's place in the garage w/ bins from other years.   I'd cleaned out another bin in the autumn so have a new one ready for this year's ephemera.

Prism

Finally a sunny day.  I'd bought crystals last year to hang in the windows and packed them away w/ Yggdrasil's ornaments.   When I decorated the tree, I'd hung these prisms in the SE windows hoping they would catch sunlight and spread out little spectrums of light throughout the house.  Unfortunately since the week before Christmas until today we'd only had one day w/ morning sunlight and that day I'd left the house before sunrise to pick up Friend Nancy for breakfast.   Today w/o cloud cover the temp had dipped to zero but my house was filled w/ small color continuums everywhere.  As the sun rose in the sky the light show moved through the rooms too.  Fortunately in the winter here the sun makes a low arc so it shines directly into those windows for a long time.  I'll remove the crystals before spring.  The sun will have moved far enough toward the east again so it won't invoke the prismatic dancing lights.  In the Northwoods it's almost a hobby to find fun things to do during winter.

Blitzen welcoming in the New Year

 

My tradition for the end of the year is to pay any debts, donate to charities, and not stay up until midnight.  I paid all of my outstanding debts last Saturday when I paid property taxes.  Well, I do owe a cup of coffee to Friend Nancy for a bet I lost but she assured me she wouldn't let me forget it so I'm not too concerned about that one.  I made a donation to the charities I support yesterday.  At one time I made donations at different times during the year and then realized that when you donate it just signals the charity to send you even more requests for money.    Setting one time during the year to pay fixes the issue of donating multiple times during the year because I forgot I already had.   It doesn't resolve the deluge of begging letters/e-mails/texts during the rest of the year but now I'm OK tossing them unread.  When I was much younger I would party until midnight.  Finally I realized the arrival of midnight on New Year's eve was a lot like the arrival of the First Point of Aries overhead.  Useful but totally imaginary.  Only an artifice for the human need to quantify the world.  On the other hand a good night's sleep is priceless.

After the Storm

Sister Connie's birthday today.  I called her early in the morning to let her know what a beautiful day it was.  A thick fresh blanket of white snow covered everything.  She had planned on a 4-mile walk to celebrate the day but was now thinking it was too cold for that plus they too had received some snow and as she put it "A broken hip isn't in  my plans for this month."   

Overnight, I'd fretted that I shouldn't have put my garbage can out 'cause the wind might blow it onto the road.  At first light, I looked out my front door to check on it and the can was still in place!  Only the top fourth of it stuck out of the drift now so it wasn't likely to be going anywhere.   At 4 p.m. I received a text from the pickup company that they were running behind and would get it tomorrow.  Left the can in place.  If I were to move it I'd have to manually pull it out of the drift it's in and set it back atop the drift.  I'd go through another night worrying it might be blown into the roadway.  Also, I'm still miffed that the garbage pickup company insisted I leave the bin on the opposite side of the road.  If it was on my side of the road it would be at the edge of my driveway and easily accessible.  I'm kinda curious how they are going to extradite the bin.

I was snowbound unless I wanted to walk somewhere.  In the morning I worked on a jigsaw puzzle.  Whip thought the nearby futon would be a good place to stretch out and the cats curled up on the window seats on either side of me.  Glad they were happy to only watch and not try to 'help'.   The plow guy arrived around 1 p.m. and did an excellent job on cleaning off the driveway and around the front of my garage.  No where to go - most activities were cancelled because of the storm - just nice to know I could leave if I wanted.

Waiting out the storm

The first snowflakes of the storm began to fly as I walked out of church this morning.  My mind had wandered a bit while waiting for church to begin.  I'd made notes on prep I could do before this storm.  Back home I called for Whip and walked out to Sleipnir.  At the beginning of each month I water the plants overwintering in there.  Getting there means walking through ankle deep snow - if the forecast is correct it will be much deeper by tomorrow.  Watering them a few days early will save me making a new path through even deeper snow.   I wanted Whip out w/ me because she doesn't like storms.  Better to get her out and about now than later when I'd have to push her out the door.  Monday is garbage pickup day.  Technically, I'm suppose to have my garbage curbside by 6 a.m. but they never pick mine up before 11 a.m.   While the storm should end tomorrow morning I don't know when the plow guy will make it to my place.  I took the garbage out and heaved the bin up atop an existing drift.  Wanted it far enough back from the road so the plow could easily clear the shoulder.  Hopefully, the snow will fill in around it and keep it from blowing out onto the road.  The rest of the day was filled w/ making hot cider and watching the storm blow through.

Whip and Dunder

Only two things on the must-do schedule for today - pay property taxes and move Yggdrasil back to the workshop.  First I had to wake up.  In my dream I'd introduced the "." (period) tile to Words With Friends.  There are two per game, you can place it at the end of any word and start another word.  (i.e. BIRDS can become BIRDS.DOESNT).  Only rules are it must be at the end of a valid word and you can't put two periods together.  Once I woke up I realized (1) what conversation had caused me to dream that and (2) maybe I'm spending a bit too much time on WWF.

Town Treasurer Michelle opened up the town hall to collect property taxes this morning.  Property taxes can, of course, be mailed in or put in a drop box at the hall but some of us just like the personal touch of paying at the hall to a live person. I waited less than five minutes as the person in front of me finished up gossiping w/ her in the office. Then it was my turn for some gossip.  As I left another tax payer arrived.  She'll probably have a steady stream of people until she closes at 11 a.m.

I got down the case for Yggdrasil's ornaments.  Fortunately, I kept each individual ornament box so if I have a box left over it means I missed an ornament somewhere.  I worked on it while watching Svengoolie's flick "The Creation of the Humanoids".  By the end of the movie Yggdrasil was bare of ornamentation.  It was 9 p.m. but I moved the little tree over to the workshop in the dark.   The forecast is for snow tomorrow - a possible 10".  Much easier to move the tree now when there are only a couple of inches of the white stuff to go through.  Made sure the tree was in a nice spot, gave it a drink, and shut off the lights.  Sweet dreams until spring.

Pets at Christmas

I had told the pets they would like Christmas.  I opened some of their presents this morning.   Blitz received crinkle fish.  They are cylindrical, make a crinkle sound when grabbed, and have some catnip on them.  I threw one out on the floor for her to play with but as soon as she showed an interest in it Whip sauntered over, grabbed the fish and went over to a spot she could curl up with it.   She was a real 'dog in the manger'.  Dunder's present was a little fuzzy bird.  When a cat bats at it the little bird waves it's wings, moves along the floor, and makes a chirping sound.  It does that for awhile and then stops until the cat bats at it again and the routine starts up all over.   Blitz played w/ that until both she and Dunder became more interested in checking out bits of wrapping paper and empty boxes.  Whip got a soft stump filled w/ little squirrels that squeak when chomped on.  There are little squirrels strewn all over the house and Dunder is asleep in the now empty stump.  I tied some of the wrapping ribbons to Whip's harness.  When she walked past a cat would pounce after her.  Me ... Every meal was leftovers from last night and in between I made a dent in the Christmas cookies while watching White Christmas and playing w/ the pets.   Tomorrow will be soon enough to start picking up.

Russell & Donna

 

Brother Russell and Sister-in-Law Donna came over for Christmas Eve supper.  Yesterday I'd made out a time-table for what needed to be done and when.  Using that actually worked out rather well.  First, of course, was soup.  We had creamy tomato soup with a side of little glass dishes of raspberries topped w/ whipped cream and a sprinkling of crushed peppermint.  The next course was salad and I went w/ green and red bib lettuce leaves topped w/ feta cheese , dried cranberries, and sugared walnuts.  Dressing was a balsamic.  I also served some quick breads- pistachio, cherry, and banana/chocolate chip.  The filet mignons had been seared, finished off in the oven, and rested by the time we were ready for them as the entree.  Had a bernaise sauce simmering on the stove.   Zapped some peas last minute and everything arrived at the table at pretty much the same time.  Yeah!  By the end of that course we were all stuffed.  Had to keep going though - there were gifts to open.  I tried to make as much of a mess as I could.  In the middle of the night I'm sure the cats will be in and out of boxes and jumping into piles of tissue paper as if they were autumn leaves.  It wasn't until  Donna and Russell were about to leave that I realized I'd forgotten to serve dessert.  It was a plate of various types of cookies, fudge, and peanut brittle.  I wrapped them up and sent them home w/ two small boxes.  Neither Russ nor Donna have to work on Christmas.  Tomorrow they can munch on them while they watch movies.

Top of the Hutch

 

Breakfast w/ Friend Nancy this morning.  We both had the same plan - do our last minute grocery shopping this morning and then not go anywhere until after Christmas.  Guess lots of other people had the same plan 'cause the store was busier than normal.  We both thought though that waiting until tomorrow would be even worse.  I'd bought non-perishables earlier so what remained on this list was perishables and specialty items I could only find in this store.  Usually I make out the list in the sequence I'll find things in the store. I started this one a couple of weeks ago to cover what I planned for Christmas Eve dinner so it was in 'meal sequence'.  Threw me off enough that I had to go back to the produce section three times.  Once home it was time to wrap presents.  I went unconventional and wrapped them in peacock paper.  The paper may not exude Christmas but it is real pretty and easy to use.  That done I began cleaning.  All I can say is "Thank God for spare bedrooms to stash stuff."  Whip was looking a bit down and had begun following me from room to room.  Figured she didn't know what to make of all the prep so we took a break and sat on the couch.  She laid her head in my lap as I explained Christmas to her.  I stroked her head and said I wasn't going anywhere and she was in for some great treats.  She fell asleep.  Yes, I know I could have told her the myth of Theseus and it would have had the same affect.   To tell the truth, lots of people tend  to go to sleep when I get going on a meaty Greek myth.

Yggdrasil 2025

The local Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) broadcasts lectures from the state universities.  I can snuggle onto the couch and listen to a discussion on the physics of time,  James Madison and the U.S. Constitution, finding Homo Naledi in South Africa, a survey of the state's springs, etc.   Today's talk was on the history of Christmas trees in the U.S.  The lecturer said early on when the Puritans were still running most things, bringing evergreens into a home could mean a stay in the stocks as it was a 'pagan mockery' to Christianity.  (Of course, Puritans weren't big on any holidays but that's a different story.)  In the first half of the 1800's, things changed w/ the massive influx of German immigrants who brought their traditions w/ them to the new world.  By the second half of the 1800's, having a Christmas tree in your house was all the rage.  The surge for trees led to some indiscriminate cutting and in the early 1900's there was a concern that this could lead to environmental problems.  Conservationists started a movement that one tree should be planted in the middle of a town where everyone in the area could come and celebrate Christmas in the communal space.  Businesses liked the idea because shopping areas would put up their own big trees that could be seen from a distance and bring in customers.  Big companies sponsored some trees as advertising.  A few communal trees (think New York's Rockefeller  Center's) still remain but the idea didn't really take.   Turns out that many people didn't like to celebrate w/ their neighbors - especially if some of those neighbors were immigrants.   Farmers realized evergreen trees could be a new and profitable crop so tree farms sprang up.   1954 my state's growers formed the Christmas Tree Growers Association to spread  best practices, set standards, and mass advertising.   Then in 1962 Rachel Carson wrote 'Silent Spring' documenting the harm done by DDT and other pesticides to wildlife.  At first the Christmas Tree Growers Association claimed DDT was safe and necessary in order to grow trees.  They called Ms. Carson an alarmist and her book was a big hoax.  The public view and concern about pesticide use (particularly DDT) however changed.  The association's message then changed too and embraced using safer chemicals.  Plus they pushed the fact that trees create oxygen in their advertisements.  (Everybody likes oxygen, right?)   By the last half of the 1900's some bright person figured out  how to make artificial Christmas trees from plastic, metal, and wire.    This year 83% of Christmas trees in my state will be artificial.   Not exactly an environmental plus but no watering required, no dropped needles, reuseable, and you can even pick one up in pink.

Winter Solstice sunrise

Today is Yule (i.e. Winter Solstice)!  The last of the autumn decorations (this year it was the orange rugs that top the window seats) have been tucked away.   Sunrise occurred so late this morning that I made it through the whole morning routine and still had time to spare before catching a pic of the sun making an appearance.    The tradition of decorating the home w/ evergreens at Yuletide is an old Germanic one.  Each year's live Christmas tree I name 'Yggdrasil' after the Norse tree of myth.  This one is again a white spruce that has been waiting for it's debutante presentation in the workshop.   I follow Mom's rule of not allowing a tree inside the house until the week of Christmas.  She didn't want it dropping needles into the rug (plus we usually cut one large enough to disrupt normal movement routes in the house).   Yggdrasil comes inside today.   Looking forward to decorating it's little branches w/ tiny ornaments.  Best get busy - not a lot of daylight to work w/ today.

Tracks in the fresh snow

I knew a storm was coming.  At the bottom of the TV screen a banner started announcing early school closings and cancellations of afternoon activities.  The locations were all well south of here but moving closer.  It was overcast, winds calm, and temps just above freezing.  Actually a relatively nice day.  When I left for the library though it had begun to drizzle.  Librarian Trevor had been on a web meeting w/ other librarians and they were telling him how bad the coming storm would be so he was making plans.  He'd talked w/ Library Board President Rose.  He would be leaving for home in an hour but if I thought the storm was getting bad I could close down the library early.  There were the two women knitting and gossiping at a back table, a man doing research on one of our computers, a grandmother and four kids waiting for her daughter to get off work so she could pick up the children.  Those kids were having a great time w/ all of the toys available for them.  One was reading out loud to his grandmother who patiently helped him sound out words.  Nah ... I wasn't going to close down the library early.  Could hear when it began to sleet 'cause the pellets pinged off the windows.   Eventually that became snowi and the wind started screaming as it was squeezed through the village's pathways.  A couple of hours later actual closing time came, everyone had already left.   As discussed with the Trevor, I put a sign on the door that the library would be closed on Friday.  If the storm wasn't that bad, Trevor would remove the sign when he came in next morning.  I drove home slowly.  Not slippery but the wind was whipping the snow across the road so at times hard to see anything.   Whip was anxious for her nightly constitutional.  She didn't like the blowing snow but took off into the teeth of it.  I followed.  Once she had urinated, I whistled for her to come back.   When she realized I was headed back to a nice warm house, it was a race for the front door.  I fell asleep listening to the howl of the wind.    In the light of this morning though turns out there wasn't that much sleet or snow and the winds have abated.  Hopefully Trevor will remember to remove the sign or it will be a slow day at the library.

Installing the dishwasher

It was a banner day!  The temps got above freezing.  First time this month and first time in the last four weeks.  I do love the cold - it kills most invasives and  cold stratification is required by native seeds in order to successfully germinate later.  In the darkest part of the year though, who doesn't revel in a sunny day and (relatively) warm winds.  I watched w/ great satisfaction the remaining snow slide off the solar panels.  Then, the dishwasher  (I'd ordered it in September) finally arrived and was installed.   The appliance company is poor at supplying updates on when appliances would be arriving.  After a month of not hearing from them, I called and called again and again before I got anyone who would tell me what was going on w/ my order.  The day of install the company does a communication 360.  I got a text of when the truck was starting out, a map showing me where the truck was at any given time, which stop I would be (#8 for the day) and an approximate time they would arrive which was updated multiple time during the day.  These installers were pretty nice guys.   Finally, Friend Kathy and I did an impromptu Zoom meeting.  With all of the different events, activities, preparations, etc. going on this time of season it's relaxing to just be able to talk and laugh w/ a friend.