Tweaking

Tweaking a blog set-up when one has virtually no computer skills is a tiresome process.

The cats have given up after trying since supper-time to capture my attention.

In the time spent I might have nearly finished a quilt--or sorted the closets--or done a huge baking.

I have to recreate the list of blogs which inspire me--somehow that disappeared, not to be retrieved.

But enough!  J. reports that it is now minus 2 degrees F.  The house is chilly around the edges. I think that a mug of hot milk, with lacings of honey and a pinch of ginger, might be a good inducement to sleep.

It seems that long winter's nights have been with us for many weeks.

I hope you'll enjoy the photos on the sidebar of the creatures who live with us.

Teasel [a.k.a. "Mamma's Darling"] is so beautiful and photogenic I could do a whole album just of her.

Where Are The Birds?

American Kestral perched on the dead branch just above the bird feeder.

Photo of American Kestrel from the website sdakotabirds.com.

During our three previous winters in this house, we have kept  bird feeders dangling from the dead spurs of a tree stump outside the dining area window.  The regular visitors have included a bewildering variety of sparrows, goldfinches in winter plumage, rosey-capped finches, chickadees, black-eyed juncoes, woodpeckers, the gaudy flickers and the detested starlings. Red-winged blackbirds and their yellow-headed cousins are here from late winter through autumn. 

In the endlessly cold wet spring of 2007 we had two pair of lazuli buntings eating at the feeders for about three weeks, perhaps resting on their way to a more northern destination.

In the week before Christmas we noticed that our regular visitors had disppeared.  I worried that perhaps I hadn't refilled the feeders quickly enough and they had left in despair.  On Monday I saw a scattering of sparrows picking at the cracked corn and seeds.  They flew up in a startled cloud and a larger bird sailed into view.  Catching sight of the black-spotted bronze back feathers I at first thought one of the flickers was visiting.  A closer look indicated it was a bird who was a stranger to us.  I got a photo as it perched on the dead spur of the old stump, cropped and zoomed in until we could see it clearly.  J. went through the bird book making comparisons until we identified our visiter as an American Kestral.

It [he?] has arrived again today, stopping in one of the old cottonwoods near the pond, then circling in a swooping flight. The back-swept movement of its' curved wings is very distinctive.

We are interested to see this bird, but fear he has driven off our familiar smaller friends.  We miss their busy presence.

Added this evening:  I sent the photo of the kestrel to my friend and neighbor, Sue, who reports that kestrels visit her dooryard as well and don't pose a threat to the smaller birds at the feeder.

So, I'm left still wondering why our usual birds are missing!

Renovating the Blog

Two hours of playing with templates, trying to "click and drag" bits and pieces of the blog.

Other people do this all the time.

I apparently don't have the skills that "other people" possess!

Please bear with me while I muddle through.

At least the whole blog didn't disappear--it just re-arranged when I wasn't looking.

December 31, 2009

I was awake at 4:30 this morning and knew immediately that sleep was over for the night.  Meaning to be considerate, I tried not to toss and turn.  The cats knew I was awake and began none too subtle encouragements for me to get out of bed.  I gave in a few minutes after 5:00 when Charlie  plumped his considerable furry bulk under my chin and commenced to purr at full throttle.

Heaving several adoring felines to the floor, I eased from bed, felt about in the dark room for warm clothes and slippers. Followed by a tribe of starving cats [so convincing!] I opened the living room curtains and stood for a moment in the glow of the full moon reflected from an expanse of snow.

I served the cat's breakfast and made a large mug of tea, sat here absorbed in reading.

Just before dawn, the moon slid off to the northeast and there were moments of cold darkness before the rising sun washed the snowy landscape in pale rosey gold.

I turned from the sunrise to see the huge pale round of the moon sinking behind the foothills.  In the few moments it took to snatch the camera, pull on a warm vest and wrench open the front door, the moon had nearly slipped from sight.  No time to fiddle with camera settings and way too cold for comfort!

Still shivering, I stood at the west window to record the glowing foothills as the sunshine gained in strength.

More frost feathers twirled and spun under the east entry overhang.

Grandson D. says they look like hanging "snow bats."

Looking through the south window toward the frozen pond.

Charlie sat on the windowsill watching the world wake up.  When I picked him up his fur felt cold. Here he is sulking at the top of the new stairs, barracaded from entering the attic.  I had attempted to comb snarls from his hair and he felt abused.

J. announced that we would travel to Casper today to buy a shower stall for the upstairs bathroom in the making.  This is a trip of about 2 1/2 hours each way. 

At the last minute he decided to drive our Toyota Rav 4 instead of one of the diesel pickups. We took the "scenic route" from Rawlins Jct, through Jeffrey City [which was never a "city, but is now a nearly abandoned uranium mining town] down to Muddy Gap and thence to Casper.

There are three building suppliers there and J. decided to check them all.  After the first two we were ready to stop for a late lunch.

The wind blows in the Casper area most of the time.  By mid-afternoon when we reached the third builders' supply, it was an adventure just to walk across the parking lot. We chose some prefinished hardwood flooring, selected a shower, picked up a few odds and ends. By the time we drove around back of the complex to load the shower, the wind was brutal and sharp crystals of snow whipped from storage shed roofs, while the tarps covering stacks of lumber snapped and flailed in the icy wind. J. had been told that the shower unit would be boxed.  It wasn't, so we wrestled to strap the thing onto the car's luggage rack. During these few minutes the flung snow iced over the windshield.  We headed out of town through gusts of wind which buffeted the car and sent swaths of snow drifting across the road.

I sensed we were in for a tedious drive home with the laden car bucking the wind.

"Why, "I demanded, "are we driving this silly car when we have two trucks?"

J. who never admits a mis-judgement, replied, "Because the red truck has the water tank on it and Nort'n has developed a vibration which wants checking out before he is driven this far."

["Snort'n Nort'n" being the beloved 92 Dodge pickup.]

We drove through the deepening twilight, between snow covered foothills stained with the deep red-orange of sunset. As the light faded, we watched for the rising of the blue moon.  It sailed low in the night sky, shrouded in clouds of a luminous blue-grey, first behind us and then after the road turned, there it was on our right.

By the time we reached the Junction, the wind had eased and the moon was lifting above the cloud bank.  J. stopped the car in the drive to fill Pebbles' hay bin.  She pounded up from the lower pasture, a dark shape in the silvery light.

We were welcomed home by a surge of cats, protesting that their TEA was hours late. J. lined up their clean dishes and served their treat while I gathered the camera and hauled on Carhartt bibbs against the cold.

I used the "night snapshot" setting on the camera and kept a gloved finger over the flash. The photos are not very well defined, but did capture the strange bronze-tinged aura which surrounded the moon.

Inside now--to sleepy warmth and the company of well-fed cats.

Images whisk through my mind: sun on snow; a herd of antelope surging down a distant hill--as J. remarked--- like a flow of brown water; hawks, wind-ruffled, perched watchful on fence posts and power poles; golden eagles tearing at the frozen flesh of a road-killed deer; the wind--always the battering wind--scourging the brittle brown grass on the high plains, driving tumbleweeds along the fence lines; flinging dry snow across the highway; wind scalding our faces and burning our eyes whenever we leave the car to dash across a parking lot. Coming home--red sunset staining high rocky crags and lingering in molten pockets in the foothills. 

Wind, night, and the full moon following us home, while the hours tick away to another year.

The guest cabin looms in the night.

I pulled on heavy clothes and went back outside at 10 PM, looking for the moon, warning J. that if I didn't reappear in a few minutes it would be good of him to come and save me from freezing to death.

It was much brighter outside than the photos show.  My shadow walked with me. Pebbles heard me wallowing about in the snow and whickered, so I plunged around the north end of the porch and headed for her pasture.

I was startled when this photo appeared in the view finder after I pressed the shutter.  I think "atmospheric" might be the descriptive word? Since I don't drink and don't believe in ghost horses, I concluded that I snapped the photo just as Pebbles snorted out a great cloud of steamy breath.

Ah, a wild creature of the night, with glowering eyes!

My little room glows from within: geraniums on the sill; the books, the comfy battered chair, the sewing machine and the computer--all waiting for me in the warmth. 

As I suspect that I am now well beyond tired, and about to wax sentimental, I wish you joy and peace in the New Year!

Why Is It Always Charlie?

Charlie gazes out from his favorite cardboard box. He has another which can be placed upside down and has a rounded "entrance."  If he goes in that one head first he thinks he is invisible--never mind that his fluffy plume of a tail and plump backside may be in view.

J. went to the the lumberyard yesterday for sheets of plywood to put down as subflooring in the attic space which is becoming a bedroom and bath.  Rather than carry the sheets through the house and maneuver them up the narrow new stairway he started the Sky Trak and used the lift to hoist the plywood to the recently installed gable end window where it could be handed through.  Grandson D. came down to help move the plywood, while I finished making lunch. Suddenly, over the grumble of the tractor outside, there was a crash.  I paid it little mind, thinking a sheet of plywood had landed a bit askew on the attic floor.

D. came in, headed in here and said, "Oh, Oh, somebody made a mess!"

I blamed Charlie, then felt guilty as I hadn't seen him dump the plant.

D. reported that Charlie had been watching intently through the window while the plywood was raised and unloaded from the lift.

"We heard a crash inside the room and then Charlie Disappeared" he added.

In the process of crashing the geranium, Charlie managed to overturn the water pot I keep under the bench to fill my steam iron.  Water puddled through scattered soil and around the smooth rocks I use to discourage the cats from pawing at the soil in plant containers. I hastily set the plant back in the dirt while we fetched a rag to mop up with, the broom and dustpan, and finally the vac. A stalk of the plant was broken, so I added it to the jar in which I am rooting similar "slips."

This is the same variety of  Robin Hood geranium as the one which was overturned.  The first of these plants was given to me more than 20 years ago by an elderly lady who had bought the variety decades earlier at the annual spring Flower Show in Boston, Massachusetts.  I treasure it because of my association with her, and because it is an interesting plant, always in flower. It has to be cut back frequently or it goes spindly.  Thus over the years, I've had many offspring to give away and enough rooted cuttings to be sure that I have several of these cheerful things thriving.

Charlie, who usually craves attention, was notably missing during the clean up process. After lunch I looked for him and found him cuddled under the bed with his daughter, Jemima.

As the afternoon grew colder, J. and D. prepared to move the Sky Trak back nearer to the garage--where the block heater can be plugged in for a few hours prior to starting it in the cold.

As the Sky Trak roared to life, Charlie emerged from under the bed, not being one to miss what goes on.

Charlie watches from the bedroom window.  No plants here on the sill.

Charlie inspires exasperation almost daily.  He is an affectionate extrovert, a meddler, not very bright.

[Although he did catch a mouse!]

The sun, which had been elusive all day, sank behind the foothills in a brief flare of pale gold, and our corner of the world huddled into another cold moonlit night.

Christmas Weekend Retrospective

In the interest of chronology, I should have created this post before the one below which is relevant to today.  I hadn't messed with these photos previously, and am now too lazy to rearrange the postings.

We had our family Christmas dinner December 20th when our niece and her children could be with us. Son-in-law M. roasted chickens with a wonderful raisin-studded bread dressing.  I contributed two of the chickens [in uncooked state] baked a Hubbard squash which was grown by our neighbors, and a blueberry pie.

On Christmas morning M and G hosted a brunch, which was our farewell time with Susan and children before they headed across the snowy heartlands toward home.

A girl-baby's first Christmas. [Lest you be concerned, the darts have no sharp points; they are magnetic.]

Over South Pass to Howard and Heidi's on Christmas afternoon.  Heidi's Christmas cactus was in celebration mode.

H and H just bought and installed a wood-burning range to replace their pellet stove.  It has a bigger fire box than vintage kitchen ranges, so holds a fire for hours. The red kettle sits on the edge, always ready for a cup of tea.

Pudgy is the only one of the cats allowed in the house--the only one with manners. The room is dotted with cozy rugs for the cat and four dogs. The most cherished spot is directly in front of the hearth--which means stepping carefully to avoid which ever pet is basking in the heat.

Howard's new dog, Katie, is terrified of cameras, cell phones, any device which can be pointed and makes a clicking sound.  She is a short-haired Border Collie, rescued several months ago from the pound. When she came to be part of the canine family, she was pitifully thin, skitterish and had partially healed tears in her back legs which were perhaps made by being caught in barbed wire.

I unwittingly frightened her badly with my camera when we visited there at Thanksgiving, so refrained from taking any photos when dogs and people were in the house.

Katie allowed me to play with her with her rubbery squeaky toy which is referred to as her "brain." At the query, "Where's your brain?" she fetches the bumpy blue oval, presents it and waits expectantly for it to be tossed. 

Heidi's kitchen, although small, is a delightful place of wonderful smells. Chef-quality equipment is used for cooking and baking and for processing game meats.

Chef Piggy is in charge.

Susan instructed me in making these hot mats of folded and layered fabric. This one adds color to Heidi's kitchen.

A wire fence separates the south-facing porch from the strip of garden which is home to various perennials and herbs during the brief mountain summer. The outdoor cats have a heated water bowl and various snuggeries provided for the cold nights. Here Dibble, the terror of mice, enjoys the noon sunshine.

Winter Settles In

J. called me to see the delicate frost formations under the side entry roof.  I stood shivering on the pavers attempting to capture the intracacy of the hanging crystals. None of my photos do them justice.

The furnace exhaust puffs out a few feet to the left of the entry and doubtless causes the cold air to form these dainty hanging ornaments.

Each of these crystal pendants is hung by a thin strand of frost and they turn slowly and constantly in the movement of cold air.

Ice feathers the metal of the entry lamp.

Pebbles waits impatiently for her morning feed.  She is well aware that we are up and about, but not rushing out to fill her hay bin!

These four paperwhite bulbs are a gift from a co-worker.  They were packaged as a "kit" with the plastic pot and a disk of compressed peaty fiber. I dropped the disk into the pot and soaked it with warm water. Several hours later it had expanded and could be fluffed up and the bulbs tucked in place.  These are thriving on the windowsill over the kitchen sink.

The paperwhites planted in November now have three stalks in bloom and their scent is noticeable in the room.

Again I have fiddled with various camera settings but not achieving the kind of close-up I wanted.

At 10 A.M. this is all we saw of the sun, a pale flattened round of light behind the frosted branches of a cottonwood. Half an hour later it has cleared the tree tops and a wash of faintest gold has crept in the south-facing windows.

J. went out to the entry porch with the older camera which, with his greater height and reach, captured better images of the crystal creations.  This was taken at close range and makes the pendant appear huge.

The largest of these ice feathers is about three inches in length.  Others are tiny bobbles ranging from half an inch upwards. Try and imagine them moving delicately in the cold air which is stirred by intermittant puffs from the furnace exhaust.