Today's count

January in the imaginary age of climate change.  Two boys (that's just what they are in their twenties) out in the bowl playing Frisbee- in their shirt sleeves.  Puddles and the wind ruffling them like little lakes. The rising walls of a great white castle.  Bucket after bucket of snow packed around and then the chinks between the smooth forms filled.  It is in my view now, alone after the completion of construction.  A good four feet high.  The last row of bucket shapes showing like crenelation around its top. My ornamental asparagus putting out more shoots, climbing the window under the sun which has finally cleared the tops of the buildings opposite. A sun that goes down, as well roll away from it, almost an hour later than it did a month ago at the solstice.  Winter: more and more light.

A.E. Matheson 2016

Rejoice the Return of the Sun

It is First Longer Day.  

For me, the most important day of the year.  

Yesterday, winter began, the shortest day of the year.  

From here on out the days get longer.

Rejoice.

Christmas dinner

 And the dog dined on bear.

four daughters, eight sons, three mothers, four fathers, two grandmothers, two grandfathers, three uncles, two great uncles, two aunts, one great aunt, three nephews, one niece, one great nephew, four grandchildren, one great grandchild, one turkey, twenty-six home carrots, one hundred and five home potatoes, countless peas, one pot of gravy, two pumpkin pies, and a tiny carton of whipping cream, whipped, three boxes of chocolates, two plates of goodies. Twelve people stuffed to the gunnels.

Yesterday's count

A great blue bowl above as I sat in the Bowl of the U of S in the afternoon sunshine, my great coat open, my eyes up and upon the delicate branches of the elms, turned white in the sunlight, and the sounds of the little people climbing the snow mountains at the far end of the Bowl and screaming their glee as they charged up and slid down.

February spring and winter

Five days ago, on Sunday afternoon, I stood in our parking lot with my cello ,waiting to be picked up for an afternoon concert.  For warmth against the winter cold I wore a sweater and a ball cap.  This morning I woke up into the increasing early morning twilight to find the just gibbous moon hanging above the trees in the last of the dark blue dawn.  I donned long johns, jeans, shirt, sweater, boots, jacket, scarf, overcoat and my favourite -30 degree weather hat.  I went out, walked to the river bank, sat on a bench , and saw the cold mist rising off the river making the Broadway bridge look like a romance painting. And watched the moon fade into the morning sky.

January remembers herself

Last week we were still living in a surreal extended version of October.  This week January has remembered herself. The snow came, a good half foot, quite respectable, on Saturday night.  Sunday morning my work out was shifting it off the sidewalks around the place.  Monday was cold, -25 C cold.  And today it is January:  -37 C.  Long johns, jeans, ski pants, winter boots (not the late fall early winter boots that look like glorified hikers, but BOOTS), shirt, jacket, sweater, overcoat, two shawl sized scarves, two fleece neckers (one too many as it turned out, but I am out of practice), hat with the ear flaps, gloves inside the fleece lined leather mitts.  Winter.  Fresh, bright, beautiful.



The 'green' roof of the Law College



Rejoice the Return of the Sun

We have made it through again!  No more sleeps, the days are getting longer.  The happiest day of the year. :-)  Hope you enjoy your own celebrations this season and I will see you in the new year.  As you know from my summer vacation, when I am on vacation, I am oooonnnn vacation. 

9 sleeps

Theoretically I did not walk from the Law Library to the Main Library in my sandals, it is winter after all and in reality, not theoretically, it must be two feet of snow and minus twenty C.  But I enjoyed my theoretical walk.  It was to the Christmas potluck.  I baked a bread sun to celebrate the upcoming First Longer Day...nine sleeps.

Just got the phone call. The sun won second prize in the yummy eats contest.

15 sleeps

I stand in the crabapple grove, with five magpies arrayed on the branches with the brown apples, all of us enjoying the sunshine of a short afternoon.  I think, two weeks, fifteen sleeps. And when I wake up on the fifteenth day it will the First Longer Day.  The best day of the year for me, perhaps, when viewed that way, the most sacred day of the year.  It is the day that fall, our long fall into darkness, is over, the sun stops and turns, and returns.  Winter begins.  The Light grows, as though in a mother's belly, until in early February, even the sleepiest of us awakens to awareness that the days are getting longer.

Today's count

Spring, just passing through, but continuing the decades long banishment of cabin fever.  The last winter I actually had cabin fever was 1984-85.  Snow came on October 16th, 2 feet of it, and did not leave until nearly May.  In February, going mad, we cranked the heat in the residence, played the beach boys and ran around in shorts, drinking from umbrella-ed drinks and having water fights.  It was a great relief.  But there has never been a winter since that has been as bad.  And today, spring stopped by for a visit. On my walk to the crabapple grove there were five children, building a snow person.  From my angle she looked like a wide prairie farm wife with a pioneer bonnet. Two piles of ice chunks released from the road way while it was possible to dislodge them.  An eight car train calling its way across the train bridge.  The wind, moving the branches of the pines as though they were ships in the sea.

In Theory

In theory, according to Newt Gingrich, I was not out salting the ice covered sidewalk this morning because it had rained in December in Saskatchewan.  In theory I did not ice skate my way to work.  I did not stand in the sunshine of a low winter sun with a March wind ruffling my hair, the smell of fall leaves turning to the wine of soil and think of daisies budding out.  No, in theory, according to Mr. Gingrich, I was wearing my overcoat, my beautiful big blue overcoat, and not my jacket.  I was, in theory, wearing my rainbow scarf and my red hat, and my black leather mitts: because it is December in Saskatchewan and it is therefore -20 degrees Celsius, not +2.  In theory there is snow on the ground.  About a foot of it, and lovely packed trails along the walks and in the parks.  Trails on which the snow crunches underfoot and allows me to stride along. Today is all white and blue and crisp, in theory. Not grey and brown and slippery. Ain't winter beautiful. In theory.

Law in and out

Snow has come, the walks are shovelled, most of them.  And the University being a large institution, and the season being winter, has turned on the air conditioning.  Co-workers gather at the window to see the snow outside, hoping for spring inside.

the f word

EEEEEK, it's in the weather report for tomorrow:  flurries.  That white stuff that we avoid mentioning by name this time of year.  Oh say it isn't so, say it will be rain.  The garden would love a little rain.  My one joy at a weather report like this is the small, but visible, bumps on the tiny branches of the trees, little leafs all curled up ready for spring.  Don't get me wrong, I also take great joy in a wide smooth white expanse dotted with evergreens and crowned by blue as far as you can see, but I am not in a rush for it.