thisendoftheswamp

Well, winter has arrived with a bang! Last night, it went down to 5 F (about 20 below C) with snow flurries all night long. I had to go to the library, and my hands were so cold I couldn’t even sign my name. And yes, I was wearing a coat in the car – and wool gloves.

We had a visitor in the back yard this afternoon.  This is a young eagle – not sure what kind – eating a mourning dove he(?) had just clipped in mid-air.  He certainly looks well fed, at any rate.

Our pond is frozen solid on the far end. The pond is fed by the overflow from our well, and runs into the stream below the house, so this side never freezes. I’d be tempted to drag out my skates, but it’s not worth risking my life, or listening to the (well deserved) dressing down I’d get after The Squire pulled me out of the water.

It’s 28 F now and supposed to go way down tonight. Brrr.

Again.

Yesterday, I received a check from my mom’s insurance company, and a notice that she had $144.57 in taxable income last year. Today, I got a notice from her bank that her account had earned $29.90 in interest last year. Now, it’s probably going to cost me more to have H&R Block file the bloody paper work, than she theoretically earned.

All this for 174.47.

I swear, the woman is more trouble dead than alive.

For the last week or so, we’ve been hearing an animal bark at night that neither of us could identify. When The Squire came home from Vestry last night, he spotted a coyote sitting at the top of the drive. I think Sir Edmund’s late night strolls have come to an end. Wild coyotes and tame cats do not make a good combination.

Not sure yet what to do. I suppose we can call the county and have it relocated to a state park north of us.

Sometimes it can be very obvious that God is looking out for me.

Last night, we had a Twelfth Night Celebration at church, and I took a plate full of food scraps out to feed a fox who has a den in the woods behind the building.  There was enough light from the windows for me to skirt the herb garden, go along the edge of the Colonial church and around the back side of it, and then walk across the yard. I finally decided to put the dish down “right here”.  As I bent over, the plate hit a huge branch. Had I taken one more step, I would have fallen, a good distance from the building, in the dark, out of sight and out of hearing. Just stop right here.

A few years ago, The Squire and I were coming home and I was driving, as he doesn’t like a stick shift. It was late for us and I leaned back in the seat to close my eyes “for just a few seconds”. The Squire asked me when I was going to go ahead. “The light’s been green for a while.” Just as I slipped my car into drive, another vehicle came roaring up Route 40, doing at least 100 mph. It sounded like a low-flying airplane!  Obviously ran a light that had been red for some time, and if I had pulled out when I had the green, there would have been a fireball. Just stop right here.

Way back when, before we had “right on red” laws, I was sitting at a stop light, chatting with my girl friend. We were looking at each other, and she happened to glance up and saw we had the green light. Again, as I started out, a car full of joy-riding teenagers sailed past. The car behind us was an unmarked police car, and he whipped around me, turned on the siren, and didn’t catch up with the kids for about a half mile. Had I pulled into traffic when I had the green light, it would have been a horrible disaster.

Just stop right here.

I felt so absolutely rotten yesterday that I finally gave up and went to bed at 7 PM.  I slept like the proverbial log until midnight, when our neighbors set off fireworks for half an hour. I got up long enough to kiss The Squire Happy New Year, go get another pain pill and check on the whereabouts of the cat. Eddie was sitting bolt upright on the guest room bed, with righteous indignation in every line of his body. Felt pretty much the same way, frankly.  I still didn’t get up until almost 10 this morning. And I think Cardie sleeps a lot.

Looks as if somebody else had a long night. Many’s the time I fell asleep with one of the girls cradled on my chest. Cardie is just six weeks old here, and you can judge her size by her dad’s hand.

I mentioned the weather has been warmer than usual. Today at the feeder, we had both a pair of cardinals and three wrens!

Decided to trade my general frustration for a jig-saw puzzle. At least I’ll have something to show for my troubles.

I know women lie about their ages (Like many women my age, I am 39.) and what size they wear on a good day, but I didn’t know men did it, too.

I asked The Squire what size trousers he wore, and he told me. I confidently went to the store and bought him two pair of badly needed slacks – one Haggar and one Old Navy. Christmas Day, he opened the package and informed me they were too small! Because I had gotten the sizes straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, I had disposed of both the sales slips and the price tags, so they cannot be returned.

I must love him. I didn’t kill him on the spot.

And still with the ants. Baltimore’s weather is erratic, to say the least. We are just about midway between the Atlantic (not the Bay) and the lower slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, and weather systems bounce back and forth like crazy.  Yesterday morning, I got out of bed and it was raining, and by the time I got to the kitchen it was snowing to beat the band, and snowed most of the day. Today was warm, but very windy. Every time the weather warms up above 40-F the ants become active, and then if it rains or gets cold, they come inside the house to get warm and dry.

Last weekend, I was decanting some punch from a samovar into empty soda bottles and didn’t notice that I had spilled a few drops on the carpet. A couple of days later, The Squire remarked that there was a stain on the rug, but when I went to blot it up, it was a mass of ants, parading from the corner of the room, across the carpet and back. It’s almost January, kids! What’s with this ants stuff, anyway?

My iris are coming up. Not crocus – iris.

It’s going to be a long winter, folks. And then again…

Back in November I posted that our nephew’s wife had delivered a little girl, ten weeks early.  Little Miss Cardie has done spectacularly well, doubled her birth weight in a month – went from two pounds to four! – and the doctors sent her home in time for Christmas.

Cardie does spend a lot of time sleeping – she has a lot of catching up to do! – but big sister Brooklyn just likes to sit and watch her.  This is our very own Christmas Miracle.

Today was Grubby Sunday at Resurrection. Most folks came in work clothes and we stayed after service to hang wreathes and swags, run the vacuum one last time, make sure the hymnals and prayer books are properly lined up – two hymnals on the center and a prayer-book on either side, fill candles, wash sconces, on and on. Fortunately, a fair percentage did stay to help, and we had coffee, mulled cider and donuts to keep us going.

Our new rector is a former Roman Catholic, and he had us in stitches telling stories of Christmas Past. My favorite involved the midnight service at a Polish church in downtown Baltimore. The crèche had been set up in front of the altar, all but the infant Jesus. At mid-night, the priest cried out “Chrystus Rodzi!” and the Baby Jesus came flying out of the choir loft on a zip-line, knocked over the crèche, scattering figures everywhere, and prompted one server to simply flop flat on the floor.

And we thought Resurrection had a lock on fun and games!

Like most of the world, The Squire and I watched in horror on Friday as the news in Newtown unfolded.  We read the names and ages of the victims in church on Sunday, and our local Cub Master became visibly upset. He said later that he has 40 youngsters in his Pack, all the ages of the children killed, and he was just mentally coping with the idea of having half of his troop ripped away.

We had a shooting here on the first day of school, when an unbalanced young man walked into the local high school an opened fire in the cafeteria. Fortunately, he was known to the guidance counselor, who tackled him immediately. Only one student was injured, and there was no other loss of life. It is time to do something, and it is very telling that thirty-one pro-gun senators refused invitations to appear on national TV to discuss this.  Frankly, I don’t think it’s going to stop until one of their kids is involved.

Well, they won’t let me handle it, so how is it going to be done properly?

We had our annual Open House yesterday, which started off with a bit of a bang. I have a habit – a bad one, so I’ve been told – of putting odds and ends into the fireplace. Dead leaves from houseplants, wooden scraps from dollhouse kits, what-have-you, figuring it’s all kindling. The Squire laid a fire and lit it just as the first guests arrived. My “kindling” went up with a whoosh, and the cold air in the chimney forced all the smoke back into the living room. What a mess! Short discussion. I will try to stop being so “helpful” and The Squire will try to look before he lights.

The crowd was smaller than usual, but the weather was yucky and the Ravens were playing their do-or-die game. They died. I asked one fellow why the team even bothered to show up. He said they had to – it was their home field.  One man actually dropped off his family and went back home to watch the game! I’ll bet he regretted that, on a number of levels.

In spite of the weather, my cousin came up from “almost Annapolis” and another old friend came down from Pennsylvania, which were delightful surprises.  My cousin and I were talking about my mom when Old Friend arrived, and the conversation continued for a few moments after he arrived.  I think he was really surprised to discover that the things I had always said about my mom were true.  Let’s put it this way – another cousin once remarked that after spending a week with my mom while his parents were away made Army boot camp a snap.

Suddenly, the smoke alarm sounded! I thought Godson (who was acting butler for the day) had left something in the oven, but it turned out the pink candle on the Advent wreath burned about three times faster than the others, and the fresh (thank God!) greens on the wreath had begun to smolder! Three quick pinches, and the candles were out, and the wreath transported to the patio.

As the rector said, “Lucky it wasn’t a menorah.”