Pinehaven - Farmersville, Ohio

A Little Like Winter

2012-02-14T09:51:00.000-05:00

Though it is still cold, it is now snowing and calm, and so the greatest chill is gone from the air. I suppose the current temperature of freezing will rise to nearly 40° later today and melt what little snow (2/10") we received overnight. Though it was still snowing when my walk time came, I just pulled up my hood and headed out. The snow is falling from the south and so it gathered on the left side of my coat as I walked towards Sams, switched to the right side as I walked back out the lane. It all evens out. I am equally wet on both sides.

I've always been intrigued by how last fall's Queen Anne's Lace gather the lightest of snows. Their flower heads, now months-dry, seem to reach like brittle fingers towards the sky and snatch every nearby flake as it falls. Where there is little snow on the ground, these flower heads seem to have been gathering in a heavy snowstorm.

Nature must have a purpose in this way. Perhaps it conditions the seeds for next spring's planting?

Two days ago, we dropped to 10° and Mom's second flood bedroom window (north-facing) was etched, when the day began, with a glorious coat of feathery ice, perhaps an indicator of our heating costs and an artistic triumph at the same time. How can mere molecules of water take on such intricate structures? A wide view shows the window as I first saw it from the bathroom.

The day, in the background, has begun clear and crisp and the dark outline of the pines is etched against the blue sky. But here on the window, ice has been drawn in feathery shapes, all while we slept. These storm windows do not seem to leak air - we never feel a draft - and yet cold fingers of air apparently invade the space between the panes and write their message there with icy fingers.

We would do well to replace the windows (probably installed in the 1960's when the house was bricked) but we paid an enormous fee to have the outside frames layered in aluminum, to protect the old wood, and it would mean starting over again with new windows. It is easier to pay slightly higher heating bills and be done with it.

A close-up view of a small section of the pane, shows the delicate patterns left there. They truly mimic the feathers of birds and at their root, I imagine nature uses the same instructions for both. Nature repeats herself ad infinitum. It is almost a Darwinian thought: when a pattern is found to work here, it is used again there. But, no, these are not living creatures and the pattern is elemental, cast down at the core of nature herself.

Now, hours later, the snow is slowing and the temperature has risen to 34° and our quick taste of winter has nearly ended. I button the pocket that contains my billfold and know that it can stay there a while longer.

Driving Miss Mary

2012-02-10T13:56:00.000-05:00

I know how Hoke Colburn felt. Behind him, in the mirror, sat Daisy Werthan barking out orders.

My mirror shows me a similar character: Miss Mary.

Mom has always sat in right rear seat of any car we've ever driven. It is her place. When Dad died, I asked her if she'd like to move up front with me. It'd be easier to get in and out of the car there. We'd sit side by side and the conversation would be easier. We wouldn't have to be forever handing things back and forth.

"No, I like it here," she said. "All my stuff is here."

Thus the conversation about relocating ended.

"I'll feel like a chauffeur," I told her. "Too bad," she answered.

So as we tool about town, I sit alone. Driving. Humming. She sits alone. Reading. Sleeping.

With the mirror, though, I can watch the progress of her book. I'll begin to see her listing left, slowly shifting down in the seat until she is no longer visible. When I can no longer see the top of her hair, I know that she is sound asleep. It is a rare acknowledgement of trust, her sleeping while I drive.

Mostly the rear seat is a sort of throne where she can arrange the next stop, make mention of some sight beside the road, plan the next day's meals. I watch her survey her kingdom from there.

Beside her, on the floor, is a box which contains her usual necessities, a sort of portable beauty parlor. It contains tweezers and clippers. A favorite drive-time pastime is to tweeze errant hair from her eyebrows, a dangerous activity while speeding down the road. "You'll put an eye out if I have to stop quickly," I tell her. "I have to do this here, The light is better," she replies.

She keeps a roll of paper towels handy, too. No idea when they'll be needed to clean up some mess, else staunch the flow of blood if the tweezers go terribly wrong at 55 miles per hour.

To her credit, she keeps the square foot of floor beneath her feet impeccably clean. She keeps a rag rug there, folded just so, and she'll whip it out now and again and shake it when we reach the garage.

"Let's go to the grocery in New Lebanon," she says. "Then we can stop at the library in Germantown."

I follow the instructions like a cabbie. After all, I'm drivin' Miss Mary.

Three Bottles

2012-02-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

We've been a wine-making mood. Trouble is, we make it far faster than we drink it. What's wrong here?

Wine is not something we regularly have with meals. I tend to drink a small glass infrequently at bedtime and that's about it. I enjoy making it, love the bubbling sound on the kitchen counter, love walking by a jug-in-progress, thinking of those busy yeast cells lapping up sugar, spitting out alcohol and carbon dioxide. It's an entire manufacturing plant that fits in a gallon container.

Mom, meanwhile, has seen fit to "make room" for our recent production. We have an area under one kitchen counter that is tall enough for large bottles and it is where we store items from the grocery - cranberry juice, vegetable oil and the like - until they're ready for us. It's the perfect spot for bottles of wine: cool, dark, undisturbed.

So while I'm sitting on the sofa reading, I hear bottles clanking. Mom's emptying that space, sitting groceries on the counter top, pulling out older bottles of wine, Rock 'n Rye and white lightning, and putting them aside for dusting and eventual relocation in the same space. It pays to rotate the stock.

That's when I walked to the kitchen to see what she was doing. With the outside light flooding through three bottles of apricot wine - all made in 2008 - I was taken aback by their beauty. What a lovely gold they've become! The wine was placed in old bottles, each thoroughly washed, and labeled crudely. They were never planned for long-term storage. Most have become gifts.

They are, perhaps, first a feast for my eyes. I picked up each bottle, felt its cool glass, dusted it before sitting it back down. Mom will organize our stock, place the oldest to the front, tuck the newest grape to the rear where we'll pull them to the light years from now. Unlike me, each will become better with age.

Perhaps I'll learn a lesson and the newest wine won't last three years? Last evening, I lifted a small glass down from the kitchen cabinet, poured a few ounces of the dark purple liquid in it and carried it to the sofa where I pulled the quilt across my lap, opened my book and enjoyed the exquisite quiet. The latest wine is medium dry - perfect in my estimation. I don't want a dessert at bedtime.

And so, I think the current wine isn't going to need the space for long. I'm enjoying it first with my eyes but a warm belly at bedtime is a close second.

A Spoonful of Sugar

2012-02-07T15:24:00.000-05:00

I never prepare a cup of tea that I don't think of my beloved maternal grandmother, Catherine Paulsen. In her later years, still living alone on Riverview Avenue in Miamisburg, I'd often stop on my way to classes at Miami University. I'd have evening class at the Middletown campus and, heading south anyway, I'd stop at grandma's for warm conversation and hot tea.

I never knew her to be much of a tea drinker but for these evening soiree's. She loved coffee, dark and black, but settled on decaffeinated through necessity. For me, though, when I stopped for a brief visit, it would be tea. She'd fire up her natural gas stove and in no time she'd have boiling water and a cup of tea ready.

I didn't know it then - or perhaps I really did - that her time left was short. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in the early years of the 1960's and it was to return again and again like an uninvited guest. She always maintained a positive attitude. Truth be told, she was a fighter. I saw a fire in her eyes early on.

So, tea in hand, we'd enjoy a short visit and talk about the things grandmothers and grandchildren talk about. They were never heavy conversations, just expressions of unspoken love. Time and tea together was enough.

She was never physical in the sense that she hugged me or kissed me much. And yet I knew her love for me knew no bounds. When I was sick with strep throat, so seriously sick that our family couldn't predict my eventual recovery, she gave money in my name to a religious charity, hoping that it might bring me health. The donation is all the more memorable because money was the one thing she had so little of. To give it away was unheard of.

I remember, as much as she wasn't a kisser, always leaning in for a parting peck on her cheek. She would invariably turn her head, place her cheek toward my lips and accept the offering in good grace. I remember to this day how cool her skin was. I sense the same thing in my own mother when I tuck her into bed each night.

If we are not a family that shows physical love, an undercurrent flows strongly. We know that we are there for one another and the strength is in the knowing.

When I saw my grandmother alive for the last time, she was nearly comatose, in a hospital bed in 1969. I looked at the urine bag hanging low on the frame, watching the slow drip of a life ebbing away. She did not turn her cool cheek to me that last night but I remember it was positioned correctly atop the pillow for a final kiss.

I still think, after all these years, "Thanks for the tea, Grandma."

[Pictured: A cup of Bigelow Lemon/Ginger Tea to which I've added a full spoonful of sugar and a slice of lemon Mom and I brought home from Pizza Hut on Sunday. It is sweet and lemony. Every swallow reminds me of my grandmother.]

Apple Jack

2012-02-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

The grape wine of November 23 is racked and bottled. With a clean, empty gallon jug on our counter, we decided to move ahead and make some apple wine (apple jack). It's as easy as the grape. In fact, follow the same recipe I gave here but replace the two cans of Welch's with two cans of frozen apple juice (we're using Kroger's brand).

Less than a day after starting the wine, the bottle sits belching on our kitchen counter. By last evening it was bubbling at a rate of two per second. When I took this shot, the sun was setting and bathing the bottle with a pretty orange glow, complimenting the color of the apple-wine-to-be.

Earlier in the day, I shot a short 11 second video of how quickly the must was fermenting. It reminds me of a just-poured soda, fizzing quite furiously. You can watch the tiny bubbles of CO2 rise to the top and then exit through the fermentation lock (the plastic gizmo stuck into the top of the bottle). Here's how it looked:

If this follows the same timetable as the grape, I figure we'll be bottling it in late April, just in time for spring yard work to begin. A small glass of apple jack late in the day may be just the thing we need to relax.

Spring Comes Early

2012-02-01T16:56:00.000-05:00

It is February 1 and the calendar shows another seven weeks of winter. But this one's been different. In fact, there hasn't been any winter. My total snowfall still adds up to a single inch.

Today was another exceptional day. We topped out at 62°. The record high for this date was 64° in 1989. The average temperature for today was 54°; the normal is 29°. Crazy weather we're having.

For one who is forever watching the sky, I've seen plenty of beautiful clouds. But none, I suppose, have been any prettier than these today. Mostly they have been high wispy cirrus, mares tails that sweep across the sky like ghostly brooms. There are the dainty white fair-weather cumulus, too. At times the sky is nearly overcast; at other times it is almost clear. At all times it is beautiful.

What is water? What is sky? Today the two are the same pure blue. It is nearly calm, too, so the air is as peaceful as a late spring day, one that causes you to tarry, never hurry about. That three-dimensional sky feels as though one could be sucked right up into it. Lose balance for a second and you risk falling up.

This is my favorite shot of the day. I love how the cirrus are angled and how the sweep of the white pine follows the line of the clouds. I love the deep blacks, the crystal blue, the frothy whites. It is a celestial ocean there over our heads. What seashore offers a more compelling view than this? We swim in an atmospheric sea.

As I arrive back home from the Farmersville-Jackson Twp. Joint Park, I see that Pinehaven's sky is equally stunning. To the northwest, cirrus almost obscure the blue. And yet as the day becomes late, I don't care. It was enough to have the sunny hours we already enjoyed. I cannot ask for more.

The Ring

2012-01-31T10:58:00.001-05:00

I am reading on the sofa. Mom is reading in her chair.

Only, when I look up, she is not reading. She is sleeping. It is the bain of her existent. "I cannot sit here and try to read without falling to sleep," she says. That probably has something to do with getting up most days at 4:30 a.m.

But as I stare at her, across the sun-filled living room, I see that her left arm is raised. Even from across the room I see that its color is no longer normal. It is shaded toward purple, colored with the years of work, tinted with toil. It is the proof of 86 years. Even from my seat, I see her golden wedding ring shine in the early morning light.

In a moment she wakes and looks at me. Subconsciously she knows she is being watched. She smiles and lowers her hand to her book. She is reading about Queen Elizabeth.

I tell her to stay as she is, leave her hand where it lands. I go for my camera to record the moment.

I ask her the story behind her wedding ring. "We bought them at Zechman's," she tells me. "I think it was on the right side of what is now the Market Square building," That's the current home of the Miamisburg Historical Society.

"How early did you buy them?" I ask. Mom and Dad were married on November 24, 1945.

"I don't know. I just don't remember. I'm not sure Dad even asked me to marry him. We just started talking about it," she smiles.

Dad's ring was gone years before. Back in 1987, when we first moved to Pinehaven, Dad's arthritis swelled his knuckles to the point that he feared he'd have to have the ring cut off some day. So while he still could remove it, he did. He placed it in Mom's jewelry box.

Our house was burglarized less than two months after moving in. The jewelry box and all of its contents were one of the things taken. The ring was never replaced. "It wouldn't have been the same ring," Mom said.

But Mom's ring has been on that finger for nearly 67 years and I suspect it's as much a part of her as the finger itself. And though the link is broken - Dad died last May - I know that there is some connection that is eternal. I think of the ring Abraham Lincoln gave to Mary. "Love is eternal" were the words engraved on the inside.

While Mom's ring has no engraving, their lives together, their day-to-day existence, is their story. My brother and I are a continuation of that story, proof of something solid beyond gold.

Moon, Jupiter & Venus

2012-01-30T10:19:00.000-05:00

It is as lovely an evening as winters allow. At 6:45 pm it's 31° and a west wind is lazily blowing from almost due west. That's where things will happen in just two and a half hours, where the moon and Jupiter will gather in the sky, just 3° apart.Even now, they're cozying up in the southern sky, high above the back porch, and I've come out to enjoy the view. Besides, placing the garage between me and the wind is a smart thing to do.

The moon and Jupiter are already plenty close and the little bit of difference between now and 9 pm isn't enough to force me back outside so close to bedtime. So I'm standing in PJ's and a robe as it is, covered with a hoodie and a winter coat, and angling the camera atop a tripod for the best view I can get ... now.

There above me, the moon nears its first quarter and displays a ragged bunch of craters near the terminator. I can't quite see them with my natural vision, failing as it is, but if I punch some telephoto into the camera, they resolve nicely.

The evening is quiet and there is still a blue-black glow in the west. I don't hear a dog bark and even the traffic seems stopped for now. It is still the supper hour, I suppose.

A wide view from this vantage shows Jupiter (l) racing the moon across the sky for its close-up meeting with the moon. To show both in the same frame, I can't use the telephoto, so both objects are small - about life-size, I'd say. Even without a telescope, if I push the camera to 20x on Jupiter, the four Galilean moons show themselves.

You'll have to look at this picture with your lights turned down low. That bright "star" is Venus, commanding the south-western sky at the same time. I am shooting around the dinner bell, silhouetted by the westerly glow. In the distance, the winter-bare maples stand stark and cold.

It is a gorgeous evening, made even the better because it was predicted to be cloudy. Two of the brightest planets and the moon are putting on a free show. It's the best kind.

Cottage Dill Bread

2012-01-29T09:52:00.000-05:00

Right off, I have to admit we cheated a bit. Our Cottage Dill Bread, which left our house smelling like pickles all day yesterday, was produced mostly in our automatic breadmaker. We figure the mixing and kneading phases can be easily automated ... and why not?

We've wanted to make this again for quite some time. The first time we made it, a year or so ago, it didn't quite turn out. Mom wonders whether she added all the ingredients in the correct amount. It looked great until we baked it - and that we do quite traditionally in the oven - when a small section of the top dimpled and fell. Even so, the bread was wonderful.

Here's the finished product, just sliced. Oh, the wonderful aroma! It would drive a pregnant woman mad!

Cottage Dill Bread

1/2 cup water (warm. about 100°)
2 cups white flour
1 tablespoon dry milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon margarine (or butter)
1/4 cup cottage cheese (we prefer Michigan brand)
1/2 tablespoon dry onion
1/2 tablespoon dill seed
1/2 tablespoon dill weed
2 teaspoon active dry yeast (or 1 teaspoon fast rise)

A few notes on putting the ingredients together: We combine all the dry ingredients in a large measuring cup (minus the yeast). I mix the water and the cottage cheese to blend it thoroughly before pouring it into the bottom of the breadmaker's pan. I pour the dry ingredients atop the liquid. The margarine goes in on top of the dry ingredients and the baking pan is placed in the breadmaker. The yeast is them added to the special dispenser on the breadmaker (which adds it later).

A note about the yeast: I prefer the Fleischmann's active dry yeast. I also had some Montrachet yeast left from winemaking (about a teaspoon) and I added that, too. I didn't want it to get old and I thought it would work well in this way. It did.

When the dough is made (almost 2-1/2 hours), we take it out, knead it gently on a floured pastry cloth, form it into a single loaf, and place it into a greased bread pan. Keep it in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes. It should double in size.

Bake it for about 30 minutes at 350° until golden brown. If you tap on it with a knuckle, the loaf should sound hollow.

Mom smears the loaf - all sides - with margarine while it is still warm. That softens the crust. This bread is best served warm and eaten at once.

Grave Matters

2012-01-27T09:15:00.001-05:00

On a foggy, misty winter's day, I often enjoy a walk at the cemetery. The place was made for silent contemplation. I love reading the inscriptions of the stones, the text further muted by the rain, washing the carving out to a uniform black on the oldest stones.

There are two cemeteries, back to back, just north of Pinehaven. Less than two miles away, William and Susanna Sholly, the original owners (builders, actually) of this house lie quiet at Holp Cemetery. The house passed to their grandson, Orville Shell, in 1929. The property transfer came six months before the stock market crash and the start of the Depression. I wonder if he was happy to have it? He kept it a dozen years.

Here I am near the north edge of the cemetery, looking south. Those dark tombstones stick up out of the ground like stumps. In the distance, pines divide the cemetery nearly in half.The southern section was first used and is full. Where I stand the graves are sparse and mostly new. These are mostly my contemporaries at my feet.

Across Chicken Bristle Road stands Slifer's Presbyterian Church and to its rear and south, the Slifer's Cemetery stands. These graves are among the oldest I know, well back into the early days of the 19th century. Most of the stones are single, thin vertical slabs of sandstone, many worn by the weather, automatically erasing themselves with each new storm through the eons.

How black these old stones become in the rain! Gray in dry weather, they immediately darken when wet. Over the years - two centuries in many cases - the stones have begun to lean, half the time throwing their engraved face to the sky. Like the inhabitants below, they are disappearing from our memory. They were; that is the best we can say.

The largest, most elaborate memorials, stand the least. It would seem each generation of young people target the cemeteries for their pranks and the larger the stone, the more magnificent the tombstone, the more targeted it becomes. While the smallest stones still stand - and those placed level with the ground, while erased by the weather or overgrown with grass, remain intact - the tallest obelisks invariably lie on their sides, else thrown up against neighboring stones.

Because of their incredible weight, they will not soon be righted.

If there is a lesson here it is this: let your life be your memorial. Nothing else will stand the test of time.

Day to Day

2012-01-27T08:51:00.001-05:00

How the pond changes each day is enough reason to walk its perimeter. Now liquid as a spring day, now frozen hard, now broken and dashed about by the breeze. This winter is even more erratic; it can change in a few hour's time.

Yesterday (01/26/12) the pond was enveloped in a cool (42°) fog. It worked its wispy fingers through the pine branches and scattered across the icy surface of the pond like a lighter-than-air skater. The scene moved. Though I have seen these pines almost daily for a quarter of a century, I do not think I have ever seen them exactly the same twice.

On the opposite shore (west) the white pines stand in a firm row, with a single gap, as though a front tooth was missing. The pond holds some ice though it struggles for the surface, covered by a moderate rain. The atmosphere is white with a foggy mist.

I saw that a bag of fish food was left on the bridge area, the top torn open and spoiled by the rain. Nuggets of this food - about the size of Purina Dog Chow - litter the eastern surface of the pond. Someone feared that the fish wouldn't have enough to eat. But the winter is mild and the fish, I imagine, are safely slumbering the months away, not quite asleep, not quite fully awake with their opaque roof hard overhead.

I will continue walking the pond when the weather permits, even slightly. It is a scene that changes as surely as the sun crosses the sky.

A Winter's Sunrise

2012-01-16T09:40:00.000-05:00

Already the cold has begun to abate. It was 30° as I began my walk, 35° as I ended it. I came into the house damp with sweat. A heavy long-sleeve shirt, hoodie and winter coat was too much. How quickly it changes. A few days ago it would not have been nearly enough.
And yet I am happy for the break. It is breathing room. As I walked, sky still clear and blue overhead, the southwestern horizon displayed gathering clouds that spread upon me and lowered as I walked. It was like having a thick gray woolen blanket pulled across my head.

As I walked out our driveway, the Shell farm, across the field to our east, shows the heavy gray cloud deck moving towards Dayton. Even so, there is a slit at the horizon and the sun glows orange at about 8:15 am. It is going to be a dark, solemn day; there is no doubt about rain approaching.

And yet as I turn around and hoof back Sam's lane, the northwestern sky is still a lovely baby blue. Puffy cumulus begin to dot the atmosphere along with jet contrails, businessmen already on their way to heaven-knows-where. I love the bare trees just now, thin black branches etched against the cool blue. It is a bracing time of year, one I would not want to miss even though I hate to pay to heat the house.

A little farther back and the tree which stood at the right of the previous picture now command the foreground. In mere minutes, the clouds have moved and new contrails blossom. It is deadly quiet this morning. Not a dog barks (the cold air, the rising sun must mean time to crawl back into their bed of straw and sleep). And yet, as I turn to walk back out the lane I hear something that reminds me of thunder - it cannot be. It is a ponderous boom, due west of me, and must be some work being conducted near the village. As I walk further it repeats a single time. And both times I stopped in my tracks, turned around and watched the sky. I saw nothing.

Now, though, is a good time to take a panorama of the sky, now before the clouds have given the atmosphere a common, boring, thick gray. I start on the north, swing eastward, favor the sky and not the horizon, stop when the frame holds a thin smear of sunset at its right edge. The shot covers about 100°.

Trouble is, a panorama that dismisses the rule of holding the camera level, means that the shots must be stitched together at odd angles producing a weird result. And yet, dismissing this, the sky was my subject and the sky takes center stage as it should.

We'll have a cloudy day. Later rain will begin to overspread the area (not snow as the temperatures of a few days ago would have suggested). By evening it will be raining and we'll have a rainy night. What? Half, three-quarters of an inch? It will be wet, muddy again. The pond's ice will melt. Winter is on the calendar but spring keeps snatching the very air.

Winter Tests the Water

2012-01-15T16:19:00.000-05:00

As I said on Friday, the weather was taking a sad turn. Those days in the 40's ... 50's even ... slid into the teens and seemed to stick there. Friday (01/13) had a high of 19°, a low of 14°; Saturday (01/14) managed a 28° high but slid to 16° overnight; and today (01/15) we topped out at 29° but fell to a frigid 7° overnight. I've always thought Farmersville seemed to lie in a deep meteorological hole, one bent on pooling cold air at night. I have both digital and analog thermometers and they agree very closely.

The Farmersville-Jackson Twp. Pond is another indicator I use. Due to its mass, it responds slower than any thermometer in my arsenal. But it also holds its readings longer ... a sort of natural well that preserves the average, never the instantaneous.

So, as the cold air poured in, the pond's surface drew tight. Soon it was frozen fast. I think these are some of its prettiest times.

That hard surface, while undergoing its transition to solid, even holds the wind on its surface. Waves are frozen there. I have not seen a bluer sky - above and below - any truer than todays. It seems to have opened clear to outer space.

The ice is very thin and wouldn't support any weight. On the western and windward side, the ice is blown clean and clear. On the east, the snow has collected and is banked against that shore. It transitions about halfway across from clear blue to powder white.

The beginning of this transition zone can be seen by walking to the southern edge. Here there is ice; here there are snow flakes beginning to collect. Underneath it all, green algae still blooms, caught there by the warm temperatures earlier in the month (56° on 01/06). Along the edge, unseen, I imagine frogs are deep in their winter slumber, unaware of the hard world gathered above.

This clump of pines on the eastern shore is always my favorite. Today their reflection shows only on the blue ice. Winter has come to the pond finally.

I am nearly alone here today. A man walks two dogs who find today's upper 20's pleasantly warm. In the days ahead we'll have the pond washed clean by rain again and the process can begin anew. Winter is still making tentative steps. It is testing. It hasn't shown its harsh side yet.

Junior

2012-01-13T14:35:00.000-05:00

Ah, those pleasant days are going to continue all winter? Wrong!
Yesterday, a mild enough rain (mid-40's) took a bad turn late in the day, carried on a howling west wind, driving temperatures into the teens, forcing the rain to turn to snow and chilling me through to the bone. I slept little last night, winds howling to 40 mph and bands of snow beating against the panes. This morning the windows are frosted, the ground is strangely white and only slowly has the wind begun to abate.
This leads to hungry birds. One of my first jobs of the day was to pick the suet feeder up from the ground and attach it by its chain to the usual hook on the maple branch. As I watched, a birdhouse gourd came crashing from the same tree, splitting open when it hit the ground, scattering its top, lightweight and empty, like a skull cap, across the yard to the east as though it was running from something; and the bottom, weighed down with a mud-bottomed nest, sat there immobile no matter how hard the wind blew. The top is gone; the bottom is there still.
I'm used to a huge Red-bellied Woodpecker tentatively arriving at the feeder, hanging back until he feels I am no danger (always near the kitchen window it must seem to him), hanging back until other birds spy him and move politely away. But today's Centurus carolinus is not the usual one; he is too small. Immediately I called him Junior.

I do not remember this bird from many years ago (though in recent years they have become quite common). I understand their range only goes a few hundred miles north of here (to the mid part of the lower peninsula of Michigan). But this new one to me is smaller than the usual, probably a young bird.

Also called a "Zebraback" for very obvious reasons in this shot, the bird is an avid insect hunter in warm weather but depends on feeders in the winter when dependably provided. I have heard the larger one very often and I would describe the call as almost a bark, an incessant chuck-chuck-chuck.

As is his nature, he prefers hammering on bark and he'll take morsels of suet, when he pulls them loose, and peck them against a tree branch. Here 'ol brown eyes' is finishing off just such a treat.
This young woodpecker has not developed the same fear of me that the older one exhibits. He is skittish, to be sure, but remains on the feeder even when I stand not far inside the window with camera in hand. Or maybe he is just particularly hungry today and has decided to stick it out?

Reflecting

2012-01-11T08:28:00.000-05:00

January 10: the average temperature should be 28°. Think of a high of 38°, a low of 18°. Think of snow flakes tinkling against the window pane. Think of deep snow.

Today was, instead, pleasantly warm, sunny and calm ... a spring day with a high of 51°. And so goes the entire winter. So far there hasn't been a single measurable snow in Farmersville. We've had a dusting - a mere trace - and that disappeared almost before it fell.

And so, at the pond today, Mom and I were not bothered by winter at all. We half expected to see spring flowers pushing through the soil.

The pond, as you can see, is a beautiful, nearly ice-less blue. The surface is as smooth as a mirror. It simply could not be a more restful day.

Among the white pines on the west side of the pond (shown on the left of the first picture), pine needles blanket the ground and long cones lay atop that blanket to a soft, spongy thickness. On a day such as this, sun slanting through the branches, it would be a good place to take a nap.

I have seen this view a hundred times - no, a thousand, surely - and yet I am forever stopped in my tracks. What is there about a reflection that takes our breath? Surely it is why deep thought is called "reflection". Part way across the pond you can see the water pushed up against a thin area of ice, slid to the east side of the pond by an imperceptible breeze. The prevailing wind, when there is one, works the ice, and pine needles and leaves to this side. Other years, I'd find the pond on this day thickly enveloped in ice.
But today I can stand here, unmolested by the wind, free of winter care and enjoy the scenery in peace. How can there be unrest anywhere in the world when scenes such as this present themselves daily?

Losing My Sole

2012-01-08T10:37:00.000-05:00

I've never been called a "clothes horse" or confused with someone who follows fashion. I have no interest in such things. Price and durability is all that matters to me.
I did have one brief lapse in the 1960's when the Beatles era was in full swing. I lusted for, I bought ... a Nehru jacket. I wore it a few times at most. For where do you wear a Nehru jacket? I felt like an ordained minister.
That said, I have since that time had only one brief brush with fashion. For Christmas in 1994 (I believe) I was given a new pair of Nike "Air Bound 3" shoes. They were gleaming white and had a thin trim of "mineral green", a color I found particularly appealing. Grass stains would melt to insignificance beside that earthy green, I thought.
That is, had I worn them. I like them too much to wear them. I was enough to know I owned a pair of Nike Airs.

In the intervening years - probably 17 to be fair - the shoes have stayed mostly in their bright orange box, on the floor of my closet, safely tucked away, available for those rare times when I wanted to be seen in a good pair of shoes.

In recent years, I've bought, worn and wore out quite a number of athletic shoes. Most were bought on sale, shoes that reached the end of their lives or the end of their season. The last pair I bought was a canvas shoe from Wal-Mart, just $17.99. I have been wearing them for the past year until I found my toenails turning mysteriously black. The shoes, a half size too small, are also clearly too short for my feet. As I walk in Sam's driveway, my feet drive into the front of the shoes, push on my toenails and driving them to damage.

I showed my toes to Mom last night and she was a little horrified. "Quit wearing those shoes! Throw them out!" she told me. "You're going to ruin your feet!".

I had a new pair of canvas shoes awaiting me. These I purchased at Target in recent months - my size, even - as an end of season clearance, as summer slid into fall. I paid less than $5. They have sat in the closet along with the prized Nike's, awaiting a time of need.

The time of need is now. Black toenails do not become me. But, thought I, after all those years of disuse, why not get out those beloved Nike's and take a walk? The day is clear and sunny. Sam's driveway is dry. My feet need good shoes. And so I grasp the prized orange box, take it downstairs, carefully peel back the tissue paper (yes, they are still packed exactly as I got them), loosen the laces and slide them onto my receptive but sore feet.

It is heaven. The shoes feel like slippers. I am ready to walk!

I grab my hoodie, pull on my winter coat, walk proudly out to the end of Sam's driveway. I feel like a Lipizzaner stallion, lift my gleaming white feet a little higher, walk proudly.

I am not a hundred feet back the gravel driveway when I feel like I am walking on something. I lift my left foot to look at the bottom of my shoe. The sole has delaminated, rotten rubber crumbles to the ground! What!? I figure I'll walk on and see if I can move forward with the sole dragging. I cannot. The other shoe lets go.

I have lost my soles. My shoes have literally exploded.

I clomp - that is the best word for it - back to the house. Mom is at the sink and asks why I am back to soon. I lift my shoes with the dangling soles. She laughs. "You shouldn't have waited so long to wear those," she says.

My Nike Airs, worn only a few times before today (and then mostly indoors), are gone. I look at the box more carefully. The original price was $84.99 but they were purchased on sale for $49.99. Made in Indonesia. I suppose the warranty has run out.

On both pair, the sole has completely pulled away from the shoes. Flecks of rotten Neoprene fall to the floor.

I pulled on my "new" pair of shoes from Target. At less than $5 they offer me a fine walk. Not so proudly as the Nike's but more comfortable, indeed. As I walk behind the barn I find an air bladder lying on the gravel. Another twenty-five feet and I find another. The Nike's have left part of their sole behind.

It is a Sunday morning and I have lost mine, too.

Cycles

2012-01-07T16:56:00.000-05:00

A day begins:

It is January 5 and I am taking out the trash just as the sun rises. Above me is a dark cloud, scooting in from the southwest and overspreading Pinehaven. I know the sun will barely rise before it is hidden again but I am so enthralled by the cloud deck that I don't care. This is a scene that makes me stop in my tracks.
And because I was present for the beginning of the day, I am present for its end:

The sky was lit throughout the day by jet contrails, hundreds of them, all at the same time. I do not remember a moment when the sky wasn't literally crossed in all directions by them ... thin streaks, just made, and wide bands, beginning to blow apart in high altitude winds. The sunset, I am sure, will light them with fire. And I am not wrong.

Will I ever tire of that tree that stands besides Sam's driveway, that lovely form that shades me on my summer circuits, that seems to stand through all storms with only a small branch given up now and again? The sky is literally fire - down low - and ice - up high ... and it glows with such an ember that I think the world is somewhere aflame.

And yet as quickly as the sun sets and that flame extinguishes, the moon rises cold and white in the east. Pinehaven's bricks chill in the night air as the moon begins to cast shadows of tree branches. The catalpa seems to hold it's hands of gnarled fingers high. I would be frightened of it in the dark if I did not love it so.

And another day passes:

This is a summery winter, warm beyond comprehension, and so I can enjoy the evening sky with no more than a light coat. I walk behind the garden, set my flashlight on the burn barrel - it will serve as my astronomical desk - and marvel at the clear sky. To my unaided eye it is almost pure black but for Venus's beacon in the southwest. Yet with the camera and a little time, I can cause the horizon to brighten again, as though the sun had reversed his course. The pines, still holding their needles, and the deciduous trees, devoid of leaves, provide a frame for this beautiful shot. Standing there, it is not one I can see. Only the camera can absorb enough light to show it to me.

Turning around, placing Venus to my right rear, the moon rises high, clear of the catalpas only a day later and pushing closer to full (though three days away as I shot this scene on January 6). Look there at 8 o'clock, that bright speck on the moon. Is it the edge of a crater reflecting the sun back to me? The same bright spot is on other shots, even though the moon is not at the same place in the frame (thus it is not a defect in the CCD nor some other digital artifact). It is real. It is brighter than its surroundings. It is on the moon.

Now to the back yard where I can see Pinehaven as a whole, sitting lone beneath the moonlight. A hint: turn off your lights, look at your monitor in a dark room, click on the photo and enlarge it if you want, and enjoy the geometrical forms in the night. Let you eyes adjust - as I did when I stood there - and allow the scene to come up.

This is unusual to be able to enjoy the sky so well in January. But we are so far without winter and I may stay outside as long as I like. A winter's sky is matched by no other season.

Pinehaven Webcam Now Online

2012-01-05T10:44:00.002-05:00

I've activated a webcam in a north second floor window, looking towards the hen house and looking down from atop the pines. It's interesting to watch the angle of the sunlight change as the sun moves around the opposite side of the house.

I've found the camera (a D-Link DCS-930L) works fairly well in low light but not at night. Even with last night's going-on-full moon, I saw nothing but black once the sun had set.
I'll leave the camera running 24 hours a day except for when I am doing tests or building images for time lapse weather study. The webpage will automatically update once per minute and provide a current view.
To have a look, click here.

Added January 7, 2012 ... here's a time lapse made yesterday from 8:38 am to 11:49 am. While the scene seems static when looking out the window, there's actually a lot of movement. The trees are swaying in the slight breeze and the sun is circling the house on the south, casting wonderful shadows.

Added January 8, 2012 ... and here's another time lapse made later the same day (3:37 pm - 5:37 pm). I think the angle of the shadows are interesting in both videos.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

2012-01-03T17:25:00.000-05:00

Our suet feeder, hung on a branch of the maple tree just outside our kitchen window, is our prime way to watch birds close-up. It's usually serving the common sparrows, wrens, chickadees, nuthatches and the titmouse. We have the downy woodpecker as a regular visitor, too, both male and female.
All of them are fairly tame at this point - or maybe just hungry as winter gets colder and windier - and they'll continue eating while I photograph through the glass. One of my favorites, though, is the most skittish: the Red-bellied woodpecker.

You can see, even in this shot (the best of the past couple of days), that he's hungry enough to stay but he's looking over his shoulder all the while. Next to the pileated woodpecker, which I haven't seen in years and then only a time or two, this guy is the most fearful of people.
About 10" long, he's one big bird. I love the white/black stripes on his body feathers. But, of course, that orange-red head commands attention all around. He has beautiful, piercing rust-brown eyes. Look how his rough, gray feet clamp onto the wires.
Something as simple as a suet feeder produces these regular visitors. Though the common birds require no more than a passing glance, the woodpeckers command our attention at once. I'll hear Mom yell, "The big woodpecker is on the feeder," and I'll come running with my camera.
What could be better on a cold, cloudy, winter's day than seeing the bright, sunny head of this wonderful bird?

Christmas Eve at Miss Molly's

2011-12-24T11:37:00.000-05:00

It's our usual Saturday morning routine. Mom and I get up, head into town and meet my brother at Miss Molly's Bakery & Cafe in downtown Farmersville. Today, being Christmas Eve, the usual group of farmers were spread across two tables, discussing their week. I suppose today's talk was less about farming and more about their holiday rest. The animals may not wait but the fields, at least, will.

Here's Rae (l), who usually mans the cash register; Helen (m), who works almost every Saturday and is so used to us she simply comes to the table with cups of coffee and says, "The same?"; and Kim (r), who works throughout the week - and often weekends, too - and serves, at least at Christmas as Chief Elf.

Since we arrived at 8 a.m., only the usual farmers were there but the restaurant quickly filled up with the regulars. One of them is Pastor Todd Smith, as pleasant and happy a man as you'll find anywhere.

Chief Elf Kim (standing right) gives Pastor Todd Smith's ear a Christmas peck as Miss Molly stands watching in the rear. What a nice, pleasant place to eat, "where everyone knows your name" and where the food is always good.
Miss Molly's will close for their holiday break after today and reopen on January 3.

Gray on Gray

2011-12-22T12:35:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday (12/20/11) we had one of those impressive fogs that obliterates the landscapes, that hides all objects until you are upon them, then allows them to begin a slow materialization, like a ghost, that startles you and sets you to shivering in your tracks.

This lone tree stands beside a field on Manning Road, straddling German Twp. on the south and Jackson Twp. on the north. It is just west of Valley View Pike. It presents a pretty enough picture when the sun is shining and the sky is summer-bright. But on Tuesday as we approached the tree, I could not see it at all until we were nearly there.
You sense an outline first, the merest suggestion of a gathering darkness, and then hazy branches begin to appear and darken. As I approached in the car, the tree quickly resolves and is a startling sight. It is as though something has stepped out of the moors, preying on your unsuspecting carcass.
By noon, after a few drops of rain had fallen, the sky began to clear of the fog and the day returned to normal. Only a few days shy of the winter solstice, it seems unusual to have this summery weather. The next day we hit a high of 60°.
For a landscape that should be enveloped in white, instead we have this pea-soup gray to contend with. We have had none of winter yet, even though the calendar shows it half over. Rather than look forward to the days head, I approach them with some fear. The weather balances out and we've swung so far in one direction that I worry the next swing will be deadly. We will go from gray to white overnight.

Puddenbag & Chicken Bristle

2011-12-17T16:42:00.001-05:00

There are two roads in our area that come with a quick scratch of the head when out-of-towner's drive by. And frankly, those of us who live here have a few questions of our own.
In German Twp., just to my south, is Puddenbag Road.

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I shot this picture of myself with the sign at the corner of Moyer Road and Puddenbag Road. The only explanation I have ever read is a handwritten entry in Marcella Henry Miller's "Germantown Notes". She wrote:

"While Anthony Wayne was fighting the Indians, one of his soldiers stole some stuffed pudding from a farmer which [lived] on the road. Hence, this road was called Puddin Bag Road (sic)."

That entry she ascribes to a John Schroeder.

The other road in our area is here in Jackson Twp. and about 1.6 miles north of Pinehaven. It's called, oddly enough, Chicken Bristle.

As I pulled into the parking lot of Slifer's Presbyterian Church at the corner of Chicken Bristle and S. Clayton Road, their pastor, Karel Hanhart, was getting into this car. I asked if I could park there while I took a picture. I also asked if he knew what "Chicken Bristle" meant. He said that he thought it was a certain food dish and that their church cookbook has a recipe by that name listed. I can find nothing on the Internet to show it to be a standard recipe.
And yet the name Chicken Bristle isn't uncommon. There are towns in Kentucky and Illinois with that name. As many of our local residents came from Kentucky, it's likely they carried the name with them.

Mooned

2011-12-12T14:51:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning (12/10) I'd have gotten up a little early to enjoy the total lunar eclipse. Only, after running the numbers, I saw that as the eclipse began (7:45 a.m. local time), the moon would be just disappearing over the western horizon.
Never one to give up,. I was out in the back yard anyway and found the moon already behind the distant trees and totally invisible. So, the lunar eclipse wasn't visible to me at all. Instead I watched it on Slooh
Next morning (Sunday, 12/11) I walked into the back yard and found the moon a little higher - just as I expected - but, of course, the eclipse was finished nearly a day before. I enjoyed the just-past-full moon anyway.

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The sun is just rising behind me and even the eastern sky has taken on a bit of a rosy glow. It was a cold morning (11°) and not a time to stand outside too long.

Through the pines the moon descended. dropping through the limbs at such a pace that I could watch it play among the branches.

This shot (above) is my favorite of the group. From my vantage, the moon is nestled in a clearing and the mares show dark and smooth on the moon's surface, all with no more than a camera. Twenty-four hours before, looking back towards me from the moon, a solar eclipse would have been underway, the Earth blocking the light of the sun.
So what did the lunar eclipse look like at totality? Here was my view on the computer at 9:08 a.m., two minutes into totality.

[credit: slooh.com]

This shot is taken from the computer feed and the Mauna Kea, Hawaii telescope. I always figured I wanted a telescope - and that would still be best - but it's wonderful that some of these spectacular sights are made available to the public via the Internet.
Last night as I crawled into bed the moon had risen even later and was flooding the front of our house with its white light. I enjoy these days around the full moon when I can look out the windows at night and see the silhouette of Pinehaven etched on the cold ground.
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A Change is Underway

2011-12-11T17:35:00.002-05:00

I drove by the pond today because the air was nearly calm and I hoped to shoot some reflections. I parked the car at the south side of the park and began walking towards the water. It was a surprise to find a thin skim of ice across the whole of the pond. Two nights in the teens began to give the pond its winter wear.

Saturday morning we dipped to 15°. Last night we plunged to 11° and the pond responded in kind. I think of the fish beneath there, under that crystalline surface, trapped now for months, insulated from air. I think of the frogs and snakes, too, carefully drawn into winter mud, somewhere along the edges, impervious to cold, already deep in winter sleep.
The sky is winter-blue today though the calm air and temperatures into the mid-30's made the day fairly pleasant. But where I hoped to see a surface of calm water, there is now thin, rough-cut ice.

As with the ice in the field, this ice is punctuated by triangles. My late day visit placed the sun low and behind me and brought the surface into deeper relief. I do not remember so many geometrics in the past. It is an artifact of the freezing process, I am sure, and yet I don't remember it quite this same way. Surely it depends on the day I visit, how deeply the ice has formed?
As I walk, the grass sinks into the wet soil. I cannot stand long at one spot or I would sink into water. The top surface is frozen but to very little depth and it will not hold my weight. So I step gingerly along, not spending too much time in any spot, advancing forward before the water pulls me down.
This first freeze is not so noisy as the first thaw but it is equally startling. The view changes almost overnight. If we thought winter comes slowly this year, that rain stands in for snow, we are also reminded of the inexorable flow of the seasons. The sun is bright but low. The calendar merely teases us. Both tell me it is almost winter. Get used to it.

Added 12/12/11: Just a day later and there's a few breaks in the ice. The water again reflects a few cedars as the temperature today made it up to 42°.

The Paperweight

2011-12-10T08:42:00.001-05:00

As a child, I remember visiting my Aunt Belle's house in Miamisburg and being endlessly intrigued by a paperweight. She'd dutifully take it down from the shelf and place it on the floor for me to examine. I was most impressed by it's weight, that something so small could be so heavy. I could roll it on the floor - and she exhibited little fear that I might break it - or hold it in my hands on the sofa. It seemed to weigh down on me at such times that I worried I might not be able to breathe.

I was too young then to ask questions about the paperweight. It was enough that I had a lovely and unique toy. But when she died in 1962 the object was passed along to me. Even then, I was but 13 years old.
I remember sitting on my bed and contemplating this orb: the elongated bubbles of air trapped within glass (especially the one in the middle that serves as a stigma), the milky and turquoise shades therein that formed the shape of a lily, the perfectly clear sphere itself.

I have seen real lilies such as this but for the odd color. I'd look at the air bubbles, wondered when they had been trapped there, think of them as little time capsules of an era passed. I'd run my finger along the rough pontil scar, where the punt was broken as the glass blower finished his work.

The pontil, of course, also served as a semi-flat surface to sit the paperweight upon. A bit rough, I imagine my aunt placed it on one of her delicate doilies so as to not scratch the shiny wood of one of her antique stands.
How old is the paperweight? My guess is that it's Victorian. What is it's value? I suppose it is one of those mass-produced objects of little intrinsic value. But it holds for me a world of memories, trapped forever in glass.
As nowhere else, time stands still for me here. The paperweight is unchanged since I first laid eyes on it in the early 1950's. While my wrinkles deepen, the paperweight's lily stands forever fresh and new. It is as close as we come to immortality, trapping beauty in molten glass.