Making It Up As I Go Along #704

Christmas really comes early for some.  Out for a walk today and I saw through the windows of four or five houses where you could see lit Christmas trees in their living rooms.  That’s way to early for me but it still starts the holiday feelings.  I’m less than two weeks away from some time off and about three weeks away from having parents in town yet again.  Once they arrive, the Christmas shopping and movies and games will soon be in order.  It has a chance to be one of our quietest Christmases.  Perhaps just the three of us for Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  Having more family around would be nice but I’m also looking forward to a fairly quiet holiday season.  To sitting around with movies and some Christmas goodies.  Maybe with a trip to Upper Canada Village to see the lights.  It feels like a pleasant time to come.

Speaking of movies, I recently signed on to Amazon Prime and have been taking advantage of the video aspect of that.  Lots of solid TV series and lots of B grade movies.  But I must say, the cheesy movies have been fun.  It somehow reminds me of the days of going out to the video store to rent something for the weekend.  Not knowing anything about half the movies on the shelves.  Just making a selection based on the cover art/scene and the actors listed.  Some good laughs and a nod to simpler times as I watched the likes of Deathstalker and Zombeavers.

I actually find that the world of Trump leaves me craving the simple pleasures.  For instance.  I still have an old style tube TV in my computer room.  It was my main TV when living in St. John’s on Hayward Ave.  I recently decided that I rarely watch this TV and therefore don’t really need the old PVR hooked up to it.  But it would be fun to hook my Atari Flashback system to that TV rather than the big HD TV in the basement.  So my computer room has become an Atari room.  Playing the games on the old style TV makes it all the more enjoyable.  A depressing news day is beaten back with a few rounds of Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede, Yars Revenge, Frogger, and… the best of the bunch… Jungle Hunt.


They Remain

I’ve wondered
With acres of wood
Chopped and minced
How many of the animals remain?

Winter’s carpet proclaims
Broadcasting tracks
Through remaining woods
Trails of mouse and shrew
Paths of rabbit and squirrel
But most interesting
The Lonely jaunts of the coyote.

I assumed housing work
Would drive him out
Force the coyote to run
As monsterous machines
Shredded his turf.

The tracks could be mistaken for dog.
A German Sheppard out for a walk
But no human prints accompany
And worn snow paths show the back and forth
Of the patrolling coyote.

The time he went unseen.
But I’ll spot him before long.
Me on a snowshoe trek
And he out for a supper hunt

I’ll stop my travels in a hello nod
And he’ll scamper through the brush
Off to wait out my intrusion
From the safety of saplings and high grass

I continue on pleased
Knowing the suburb building machines
Weren’t able to drive out
The lingering bits of wild.

Making It Up As I Go Along #703

Winter is coming.  I can now see traffic through the woods across the street again (the camouflage of leaves is no more).  There’s a small layer of snow on the ground.  And today I put the fleece sheets on the bed.

Another interesting thing about this time of year is the hidden parts of summer begin to show themselves.  Walks will show bird nests in the crooks of tree limbs.  And yesterday I saw a rugby ball sized wasp nest hanging twenty feet up from a branch near the ponds.  I look for these things in the summer but they always seem to be so hidden in the canopy.

River otters are here.  In my nearly seven years at Trailsedge, I’ve seen muskrat and beaver in the ponds across the street.  This week, I saw river otters.  A family of four have taken over last years beaver lodge.  When I’ve been around, the lead otter has kept a close eye on me.  Diving for a fish every minute or so, then coming up to bob in the water, huffing at me.  Not sure how they’ll do.  I read that an adult will eat up to a few kilograms of fish a day.  I don’t think there’s enough little minnows out there for a family of four to get through the winter.  Unless there’s more fish in those ponds than I expect.

Mom and dad are booked and coming.  About five weeks away from having parents nearby again.  Winters are much more family oriented again.

I find I am slowly veering more towards streaming tv rather than the cable.  Last month I got Amazon Prime and now have access to their video service as well as Netflix.  It seems, since baseball season ended, I spend more nights on either Netflix or Amazon Video watching a show or movie there than surfing the channels.  Sports, news, nature programs and movies still draw my attention on cable.  But most of the TV shows I watch are now being streamed.  Perhaps the day will come when I just load up on my internet data and cut the cable entirely.  Who knows.

Not much else in mind to share.  Trump is a psychopath and possibly evil… like truly evil… but I just don’t want to waste my energy even getting into it.

Canadian hockey coverage is so incredibly Toronto biased that, even when you have a family history of cheering for that team, I find myself secretly wishing them to fail.  It really is to a point where there is no more Canadian national hockey coverage.  There is Leaf coverage nationally… and then regional broadcasts of every other Canadian team.  But the Jets are probably a better team than Toronto… it’s largely ignored.  Montreal has been very entertaining this season… ignored.  Vancouver has some good young players… worth a thirty second clip.  The best offensive player in the game is being forgotten in Edmonton.  Calgary is doing well but is completely forgotten.  In fact, the second most covered Canadian team is likely Ottawa… and that’s entirely due to the train wreck factor.  National hockey coverage is basically 75% Leafs… 15% How Ottawa is embarrassing themselves… 5% McDavid… 3% Petterson in Vancouver… 2% everything else.

I’ll aim for something more creative next week.  That’s it for now.

 

Making It Up As I Go Along #702

Back on schedule.

Winter may be here… or knocking on the door anyway.  Walked today with gloves and hat needed and a windchill below freezing.  Autumn goes by the fastest of all the seasons.

Baseball is my favourite sport but even I’d say it’s becoming pretty unwatchable.  3.5 to 4 hour games with not enough fielding… too many strike outs… too many pitching changes and too many batters stepping out and calling time.  My two greatest baseball wishes… a limit on the number of pitchers on a roster… and restrictions on the shift.  I’d love to see no more than eleven pitchers on a 25 man roster.  Do away with the one batter specialist.  Make it so relievers need to be able to go multiple innings and, with a reduced pitcher roster, a team can’t afford to use three pitchers in order to get three outs in a late inning.  And I wouldn’t outlaw the shift entirely, but I think the shortstop and 3rd baseman need to both stay on the left field side of 2nd base while the 2nd baseman and 1st baseman stay on the right field side.

Anyway, I still pay attention to the World Series but I’m generally not starting to watch until the 3rd inning or so… and that still gives me a good 2.5 hours of game to watch.

Memory foam mattresses promote hibernation.  Last night I was in bed for eleven hours (slept about nine of that).  It’s just too comfortable!  There’s no desire to get out of bed!

I found the Beachcombers coming on my TV each week.  Started PVRing it and now that show is part of my pre nap routine.  Watch an episode… then off to bed for my afternoon nap before night shift.  It’s a kind of corny show to look back on but is a nice memory of simpler times.  I’d much rather go to bed thinking about Nick and Relic boating around for logs than thinking about the stupidity coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth.

They’re Leaving
They’re leaving.
Once plowed fields
Black speckled
With hoards
Southbound travellers
Passing through
Pausing here
Preparing for the journey
As bordering trees
Bronze the horizon

But as bronze fades to bare
Wooden skeletal fingers
Reaching for that vanishing sun
They leave.

The leaving is gradual.
One flock departs
Replaced by a new wave
One family stopping
For leftovers of airborne cousins

But it nears its end.
A departure now leaves empty fields
We’ve reached that point
With small V’s of stragglers
Honking through the cold evening sky
Too late to land
They flap towards the southern glow.
Afraid to be overtaken
By the black northern cold

Making It Up As I Go Along #701

Haven’t posted in ages.  Haven’t had much interest to post in ages actually.  Got to post #700 and then just set it aside.

I think part of the lack of interest is in rebellion of social media.  We live in an age where it is so easy to share ourselves to the world.  We can exclaim our uniqueness to the world like no time ever before.  Yet, more and more, I see more of the same.

It got me to wondering.  Perhaps we don’t really want to show our individuality after all.  It’s in our brain that that’s what we’re doing.  You keep hearing celebrities urging us all to “just be you”.  But I wonder if really, we’re hard wired to simply try to fit in?  Find a “club” and become a “member”.  Maybe that’s why we see so many posts of gselfies.  To proclaim “this is the club I belong to.” And gain of sense of satisfaction when others click the “like” of acceptance.

I mean it’s a world of social media clubs now.  The middle aged wine guzzling lady.  The dyed black bearded muscle guy.  The look what my kid is doing now parent.  The 5k runner.  The traveler.  The drama hounds.  The right wing political junkies.  The left wing political junkies.  The Praise Be religious people.  The Science is everything people.  There are so many different categories out there but social media seems to lure us in to one of them.  And once we’re there, pictures and posts are largely geared towards acceptance from that group you’ve joined.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these clubs.  Anyone not identifying with some club or another are likely societies outcasts.  But we’re likely fooling ourselves to think we’re showing our uniqueness or individuality.

All this said, I find that, in my social media world, I don’t identify very much with those I’m connected to.  And rather than try to post selfies of myself sitting at a ball game, I just watch the ball game.  I have no hair style left to change and show off.  I mean, really… “Behold! Still bald!”  I’ve no dog to boast about.  No child to show off.  Running kills my knees and politics simply turns to shouting matches.

So I don’t post.  Perhaps my silence is my club.  The social media invisible.  I still exist… but am now easily forgotten.  A memory of a News Feed.

Anyway.  That’s that.

A few thoughts over the last little while…

News anchors need to stop telling us they have reporters on the ground.  We’re all on the ground.  99% of the world’s population is on the ground at any one time.  Just say “There in Israel” or “We now go to Bob, in Cleveland.”  We don’t need to know that Bob is on the ground, in Cleveland.

News people and politicians all need to stop calling everybody “folks”.  “Folks in New York are voting Democrat.”  “Folks are asking what’s next?”  “I tell folks I meet that I believe in free health care.”

Seriously, what is wrong with calling people “people”?

Speaking of people and the news… I wish natural disasters were covered simply as a natural disaster.  Every hurricane aftermath leaves a town “like a war zone.”  A tornado goes through a neighbourhood and it was “like a bomb went off.”  Can’t we just say it looks like a tornado went through the neighbourhood?

With that,

A Squirrel Morning

Bounding across the branches and twigs
Tree la la tree la la
Bounding across the branches and twigs
Tree la la in the morning

Snatch a seed and grab a nut
Tree la la tree la la
Chew chew chew and down in my gut
Tree la la in the morning

Scream out loud and a flurry of chatter
Tree la la tree la la
Cause bunny and bird to tuck tail and scatter
Tree la la in the morning

Curl my tail and have a sit
Tree la la tree la la
Built a leaf nest and snooze for a bit
Tree la la in the morning.

Making It Up As I Go Along #700

Been a long time since I’ve done the blog.  Long enough that I thought I’d share it to Facebook again this time… so that people know I’m still doing it.  And this is post number 700.  I’ve been weeks thinking how it’s kind of funny to just stop right before a milestone… but there you go.

I generally have found a lack of interest to share anywhere lately.  The whole world seems to be about sharing every little thing these days… and I haven’t been dying to be a part of that.  What I had for supper?  Who cares?  A selfie while stopped at an intersection?  Really?  And I have no kids to boast about after they’ve lost a tooth or finished in fifth place in a race, but at least had fun doing it.

And the world of politics?  Oh goodness no.  There is simply no agreement in that world anymore.  You’re either conservative and think all liberal minded people are “snowflakes” who live in a dream world.  Or you’re a liberal who thinks all conservatives are the devil.  Donald Trump and his lackies go off on Trudeau and there are people on twitter blaming Trudeau for provoking Donald, followed by a horrifying “I wish he was my leader.”

So I’ve been living the quiet life.  Mom and dad are back in Newfoundland and I’m left back doing my own thing in Ottawa.  I do love having no plans during my four days off.  In fact, I love it so much that, back in June, I took a block off work and had twelve days of no plans.  It is the heights of relaxation.  To get up when you see fit.  Go for a 45 minute to 1 hour long walk.  Take a drive to the grocery store.  Go to a movie.  And go on to bed whenever you feel like it, at the end of the day.

Oddly, I guess I blame it on aging, these days now have me getting up and going to bed earlier.  Extended vacation used to mean staying up until 2:00 or 3:00 AM and waking up around 10:00 the next morning.  But I’m not more likely to be in bed around or before midnight.  And up somewhere around 7:00 in the mornings.

Another thing I’ve been doing quite of a bit of during my time away from the blog.  Gardening.  My parents have a garden plot at the condo common space.  And, with them away, it’s for me to tend to.

I generally haven’t minded it.  It’s become part of my days off routine.  Walk over with a couple of grocery bags… check their mail on the way there… pull weeds and deposit them into one of the bags… tear off some pieces of lettuce for the other bag… check on the condo… water the garden… and head home again to deposit the weeds in my green bin and clean the lettuce for my salads.  Lots of salads this summer.  There’s a constant supply of lettuce and the little roadside market supplies all the rest of the ingredients.  It’s been a nice enough thing to do that I may set up a bit of a garden in my yard too, next year… though with mom and dad in Newfoundland during the growing season, I don’t know what I’d do with more lettuce.

I’m booked for a trip home.  I’ll be there for a few weeks from the end of August to the middle of September.  It’ll be my first time home in a year.  One of the downsides of parents spending half the year in Ottawa… less reason to head home for a visit.  On the positive side, it has probably saved me between $1000 and $1200 this year.  With mom and dad in Newfoundland year round, I was heading home three times a year, instead of the one.

I enjoy being home in September.  The tourist season is pretty much over and trips to Fogo Island and surrounding areas are usually fairly quiet as compared to heading there in July or August.  It seems, though, that the second part of my traditional September trip home is becoming a trip of a less enjoyable kind… a trip to the attic.  Last September mom drove me up there.  “Size up what’s still up there? And maybe we can clean it up!”  Twenty minutes brought buckets of sweat and aches in my feed and legs as I balanced my way upon the narrow beams, careful not to fall through the ceilings below, and in a constant hunch in an attempt to avoid clocking my head off the boards above.  Well, this year, mom seems to want what’s up there gone.  Which probably means any of my St. John’s friends would be wise to avoid picking up the phone or responding to my texts during the September days… I may be looking to put you to work.

After a pretty crumby spring, this summer has been fairly dry and hot.  Canada Day’s humidex hit 48.  The hottest ever measured in Ottawa.  We had a full week of humidex readings in the 40s.  And even though that is now broken, most days remain sunny and into the high 20s or low 30s.  There’s been so little rain through all this that lawns all over are becoming vast stretches of low lying hay.  Daily watering keeps my back yard green and my front yard greenish.  There is so little shade in the front that I think I’d need to water twice daily in order to keep all the brown at bay.

So that’s about it, for now.  A general look at what I’ve been up to since last posting.  I’ll try to post more regularly again now but I still think I’ll keep most of my posts off of Facebook.  Every time I use facebook I feel a little dirty for doing it.  And I don’t want to be promoting myself to the Russian bots.  They may steal one of my pictures of a beaver or turtle and use it to reelect Trump somehow.

Making It Up As I Go Along #699

This has been the longest I’ve gone between blog posts since a started blogging.  No good reason to give for it really.  I’d often get busy with other stuff on the day I was supposed to post something.  Sometimes I was just tired and not feeling creative.  And sometimes it just felt good to not think so much about stuff and just “be”.

It’s been a winter of family again.  The first extended time with family since I’ve been to Ottawa really.  Ruby and Lee were here when I first arrived.  I lived with them a while and then, even when I was in my own space, would pop by for suppers.  But they were gone fairly quickly after I came.  Spending a winter in the States and then retiring back to Nova Scotia soon after that.

But this winter was my first with mom and dad living in the condo.  They came for good in mid November and now will be heading back to Newfoundland within the next couple of weeks.  It’s been nice having them close by again.  I always felt visits were hectic and rushed.  Even in times when I may have gone home and intentionally planned not to do anything, we’d still be running down the checklist of things to do.  A trip to Bidgoods.  Cape Spear.  A bit of shopping downtown.  Certain meals to make sure we have before I go back.  That kind of thing.

But with them in a condo for months on end, we returned to casual stuff.  The occasional pop by.  A movie night.  A home cooked meal with no planned activity afterwards because laundry awaited back home.  A return to daily life with family has been a good thing.  And I’m sure the summer will feel strange with me on my own again.  Though there likely won’t be a very large continuous time apart.  A quick trip back to the condo for them in July.  A Newfoundland trip for me sometime in August or September.  And then the Fall will come again soon after, and the condo will be a home again.  And next Fall won’t be nearly as hectic as this past one.  The setting up of the condo took lots of time and energy, but now it has very much become  another part of home for mom, dad and me.

One negative of mom and dad living here part of the year… my trips home have really been cut down.  Most years, I head home three times (Christmas, late spring, fall).  The last time I’ve been home was last September.  And that was a fairly short visit as well.  It’s a savings on airfare no doubt.  And a reduction of my carbon footprint.  Perhaps it means I’ll have to book a longer trip home than normal this summer/fall.  Combine a trip to central Newfoundland with some time around town without being run off my feet doing it all.

Anyway, it will be strange dropping over to the condo a couple of times a week and not have dad sat in his reading chair or mom calling out from the kitchen while I take off my boots.  It’s a space that I’m not used to seeing quiet and still.  But it will make the anticipation of Fall greater.  With home cooked meals waiting after a long days work and quiet evenings sitting together as the first snows drift outside the living room window.

Making It Up As I Go Along #698

Not much worth talking about from the last few weeks.  I did take some time off in February.  Just down time… no trip or planned out schedule.  Those are the most relaxing times.  Sleep in, stay up late, work on an expert Lego set (a Mini Cooper car), movies and some shopping.  And it occurred during the Olympics, so I could watch some of that too.  In all, a nice time off.

I am missing the Florida trip though.  This winter hasn’t been horrible.  But even still, when I see a Spring training game on TV… and see the fans out in the sun in shorts and t-shirts… and the green of the fields with palm trees swaying in the breeze… it does call to me for certain.

Regardless, at least baseball is back.  Regular season games only being a few weeks away now.  You can taste summer getting near.

Seated Under the Clock
Ticks tocking the time today.
Achingly ambling an aging afternoon.
Seconds slowly slink seductively.
Measuring minutes meticulously.
Hour hand hints haziness.
Nudging knowingly nightward.
Darkness descends delicately.
While we wonderingly wait.

Making It Up As I Go Along #697

Skipped a week on the writing.  Last week came down to taking the time to blog or going snowshoeing.  No need to say which won.

The Olympics are here and I generally don’t care.  I have watched a little already and was happy enough to see two Canadians on the podium of one of the snowboarding events.  But the time difference means either lots of early morning watching or tape delayed stuff and that doesn’t work well on either front.  Also, I’m simply not buying the way they’re selling the hockey.  It’s almost coming across like we, the viewer, are so lucky to no longer have the worlds best players competing.  Now we get to hear “stories”.  This is how they’re selling it on TV.  Hear the story of this 32 year old who has been playing hockey in the German league the last five years.  The fact is, when you go about twenty years of best on best competition, going back away from that is a let down.  And the tournament is delegitimized. No matter who wins, people will be able to argue that “if only (insert names) were there”.

There’s a very busy beaver across the street from me.  Virtually every day, I see him on the edge of the ice or venturing up to the woods for sticks.  Why he is so active during the day, I do not know.  Yesterday I got several close pictures of him walking along the trail I was using.

I’m really getting tired of seeing actual news getting discussed on social media.  It’s just too simple a platform that allows emotions to run wild over facts.  When it comes to newsworthy events, social media is a den of anger.  It’s just too easy a platform for sharing.  For objectivity, you’d really need to read at least three or four differing articles from reputable agencies.  So then, if you wanted to share on Facebook, you’d have to link to each of these articles… and hope others are also willing to read each source.

Instead, we’re in a world where some person posts an opinion that tugs at the emotions of another… and they share it… and others share it… and so on and so on.

You’d think seeing Donald Trump win an election based on this method of getting news would sway people away from the practice.  But it’s the society we live in.  When it comes to social media, people aren’t interested in objective facts and understanding.  We’re interested in outrage.  We crave it.  We want to be able to pick up a phone or tablet, read something short that gets our blood boiling, and click “share”… to show our friends and followers that we’re with them.  A part of the outrage club.  In depth understanding be damned.

The internet really is an amazing tool though.  This week I watched a sci-fi, horror movie where, in one scene, a person was shot out of the airlock of a space ship and we last see them floating off into the vastness of space.

And I’m wondering “wouldn’t a person without the proper suit blow up in space?”  A quick google search brings back several articles explaining the effects of space on an unprotected human body.  Within ten minutes of seeing that scene I questioned, I had the answer.  And the movie got it pretty much right.  As a teenager, I’d have had to make my way to a library and likely ask the librarian for help in finding periodicals that cover such questions.  Now, I get the answer in ten minutes and never get up from the couch to do it.  

I am a pack rat.  I now live, alone, in a three bedroom townhouse.  And there is no empty space for stuff.  My storage room is full.  Each room has plenty of things in it and any thought of buying any new piece of furniture would more or less mean an already present piece would have to go.  Oh well, who said coziness has to be sparse?


 

Making It Up As I Go Along #696

Read an article, this week, that questioned the long term viability of Facebook.  I’ve always been torn about Facebook.  I keep up with some people primarily through it.  But I must admit that there was a touch of excitement within me to think of Facebook’s demise.  The only thing I’d miss about the platform is the dozens of photo albums I have on there.  All those pictures are saved elsewhere as well.  But they’re neat and tidy and easy to share sitting there on my profile.

Everything else? Burn it to the ground.  I’d much prefer to keep up with friends goings on via email.  It’s personal.  It’s advertisement free.  It’s more or less secure.  Facebook is a community newspaper of advertising.  Maybe, within the thirty pages of community paper analogy, by page sixteen I see something interesting about someone I care to know about.  But from pages one through fifteen, I’ve been flipping through suggested purchases, fictional news and pictures of dinner plates.

I’ve already almost completely ditched Instagram.  Yes it’s still on my devices.  But I go weeks… sometimes months… without looking at it.  For me, Instagram died when they removed your ability to simply view the things you follow chronologically.  I don’t need some algorithm deciding for me that I’d rather see someone’s selfie from three weeks ago before seeing what someone shared an hour ago.

Snapchat? Please.  I don’t need to add bunny ears or a dog nose to my picture.  Nor do I have any interest to see someone else do it to there’s

Twitter gets a bad name.  And it amazes me that news organizations are quoting world leader’s tweets.  But I find Twitter can become what you want it to be.  If someone is posting too much about something that doesn’t interest you, unfollow them and it goes away.  And if you search out and find interesting and smart people, your twitter feed becomes interesting and smart.  Or if you suddenly see several people tweeting about the same thing, you get a good hint to go google what they’re talking about and you can find all kinds of stories about it.

That all said, I’m often tempted to subscribe and pay for my news.  I’ve already done it with sports… subscribing to the Athletic.  I get commercial free articles from people who know what they’re talking about.  Now I think about doing it for news.  Facebook can’t be trusted to give you an actual view of the real world.  And news websites are usually bombarded with advertising.

Who knows, I may end up buying newspapers at this rate.  The internet is the greatest invention of my time, and here I’m considering going back to newspapers.  It’s a shame that the greatest invention of my time has been wasted on self indulgence and personal point of view spin.

I guess what it boils down to is I need to read more.  It’s a strange world I live in from a reading point of view.  I have many books currently sitting in my house, or on my iPad, all ready to read.  I want to read each of them and am interested in what they’ll say.  But I have very little reading time in my typical week.  It’s largely the fault of shift work.  My four days of working, there’s no time to read.  I’m at work for twelve hours, in bed asleep… or trying to sleep… for another six to eight hours.  That leaves me with four to six hours for driving to and from work, eating, and just relaxing.  Then, for my four days off, I’m too foggy to read and retain anything on day one.  And my focus is more about trying to get outside hiking or snowshoeing while also doing errands or work around the house during the other three days.  Plus there’s the new curse of the memory foam mattress.  Over the last several weeks, it’s not uncommon for me to be in bed either sleeping or being very lazy on the iPad for ten to twelve hours of my days off.

The answer will have to be scheduled reading days.  Maybe my third day off will be a minimal TV day.  Something like that, where I know I am not to go get distracted by other things.  I’m also looking forward to taking some time off in February.  It’ll be nothing time off.  No work needing to get done around the house.  No hopping a plane to someplace else.  Just twelve days of battery resetting.  Puzzles… snowshoeing… reading… all free to do for a while in the middle of winter.  Who knows… maybe I’ll have newspapers to sift through then too.

Making It Up As I Go Along #695

Times are busy and tiring.  Working alone for a few blocks and catching up on sleep during my days off.  Two of my last four days off, I was in bed for between 11 and 12 hours.  Not asleep for the entire time.  But likely sleeping 7-9 hours and surfing the ipad for the rest of the time.

Second snowshoe of the season is under my belt.  It was better than the first from a fitness point of view.  Was out for an hour rather than forty minutes and able to go harder at it.  Likely went twice the distance in that extra twenty minutes of time.  The type of snow helped too.  First time out was soft and fluffy and, despite having snowshoes on, I sank halfway up my shins.  Today, the snow was harder.  For most of the time, I sank no further than ankle deep.

The nice thing about nature in the winter.  You are more able to get hints of the animals than in summer.  Wasp and bird’s nests appear from their leafy hiding.  Mouse and vole tracks can be seen in their little territories of shrubs and ground.  Coyote and fox patrol routes come into view.  You’re left with a real hint of their lives… even when they are out of sight.

For the first time, I was able to view a beaver from my front window.  Looked out one day this week and saw the beaver on the edge of the nearest pond.  Even got an ok shot of him with the camera zoom lens.  He climbs up the bank at night and grabs a small tree from the edge of the forest.  Then slides back down to the hole he’s made in the ice and pulls the sapling down under with him.  Good ol’ Beaver.


What Will They Think?
What will they think in vole town?
To pop out of their crisp grass burrows
And see their interrupted pathways.

The soft network of voley footprints
Barely disturbing the softly fallen fluff.
Now invaded by the crunch of snowshoes.

My giant stomps cratering the virgin white
As a four lane highway
Blasting across their peaceful country path.

I turn back to examine their tracks.
Seeing how they lead this way and that.
But always returning to that small gap in the brown field grass.

Like a cowardly parking lot dinger of doors,
I decide to scurry away before they come out.
Hoping they won’t notice the paradise damage
Until I’m miles away.

Making It Up As I Go Along #694

Another long layoff from the blog.  Lots of goings on that distracted from the writing habit… or left me too tired to want to try.

The first Christmas ever with the seven closest family members.  The last time Edena and family were included in Christmas, Claire (about to turn 19) was not yet born.

It was a nice time but frigid cold during the sister’s visit.  Not a great deal going on outside with temperatures pretty well staying at or below -20.  Many days had a windchill below -30.

Mom and dad’s condo is finally under control and feels like a home.  It’s nice having them nearby.  There’s quite a difference between visits and meals with family when you live in the same place as compared to week or two long visits.  The visits are never leaving room for ordinary life.  Everything is a scheduled event fit in to the timeline of the visit.  This is more casual and natural.  Perhaps Edena and Duff will have to retire east one of these days.

I’m not sure where to put the snow.  December was both cold and snowy and my driveway is already bursting at the seems with snow clearing.  My lawn is already a four foot mound of snow and we still haven’t gotten half way through January.  With 30 to 40 cm of snow due this weekend, I’m actually wondering if I’ll have to leave the car out of the garage and no longer worry about clearing the snow from in front of there.  I’ve never had to consider this kind of thing in the six years I’ve been living here.  I guess we’ll see.

You know you’re getting tired of the constant fight and insults of social media when your two favourite twitter feeds are one that shows images of the covers of space Lego sets from the 1970s to 1990s… and, a bear.  That’s right, I follow a bear on twitter.  And the space Lego memories often bring a smile to my face.

Mom and dad have a great view of nature from their condo.  A large cedar bush wall sits outside their windows.  Juncos, chickadees, a pair of cardinals and three rabbits all call the area home.  They’ve got a 55 inch 4K TV in the living room, and I’m often back on to it hoping to get a good look at a cardinal… or watching the goings on of the rabbit clan.

With that, it’s time to catch up on the other thing I’ve done much less of lately… going out for a walk in the woods.  Perhaps this will be the first time with the snowshoes this year.  Time to explore wildlife tracks in the snow.  Rabbits, coyotes, birds, squirrels and smaller rodents… I should be able to get a glimpse of their daily activity.  The great benefit of lots of snow.