Longing for spring, in February

On an afternoon walk, warm sun on my back, a breeze from the south in my face, I couldn't help longing to rush the season, to see the tangled branches of the forsythia covered with yellow blooms, to see new leaves and blossoms in the pansy bed under the oak tree. rising above the litter of blown twigs and frost-curled fallen leaves.

But this is all the camera wanted to show me:

New January Slide Show

The home-page gallery of Dierk Haasis for January, 2011, includes some of the most beautiful and satisfying images he has ever made. It's a slide show that I'll be returning to again and again.

"We'll take a cup of kindness, yet ... "

Here I am on New Year's Eve, after dark, with the funny hat and the noise-maker that I brought home from the nursing home party.

Sunrise on the Crabapple Tree Trunk

Overnight Snow

view from my back porch



hosta bush near the back walk



silver maple with snow in its fork

A Skip of Snow

Just past dawn it was flurrying snow. Footing was treacherous--black ice on my driveway beside the holly trees and this bush with its little bunch of red berries which the birds have taken no interest in, all winter long.

February Bird Larder

Awaiting Recycling

Fallen Silver Maple Leaf

The grass in our yards is still as green as it was the day I took this photo on the morning after a massive rainstorm, about a month ago. And the white narcissus blooms from the bulbs I put in a sheltered place have withstood the overnight hard freeze. But that may all change, since all day now temperatures have been below freezing here, and tonight they may possibly plummet into the single digits, as measured on the Fahrenheit tempurature scale.

Christmas Arrivals

Freshly unpacked from the "Harry and David" shipping box, a little miniature rose plant and accompanying wrapped presents.

A Novel in Limerick Form

Place:
http://alimerickaday.blogspot.com/

Author: J-Man Jeff

I have been reading a limerick
every day since January at
Jeff's blog site:
"A Limerick A Day."

Only today did I find out
that this talented
young man is a high school
freshman.

I had assumed, although
he did give
the name of his school
in his profile,
that when he said
he is a freshman,
he meant
a freshman in college.

It is really fun
to read him and to watch
his limerick-writing skills
grow steadily
better, as he stays
faithfully with his
project.

I highly recommend this site.

March Ahead

Blustery March
is threatening to bound in
like a lion,
heralded for me by
thunderstorms this afternoon
and more wild weather
on the weekend, as we move into
the last few days
of February.

Lew Sarett's words,
"Walk softly, March,"
came to my mind when
I read the forecast
this morning.

"Four Little Foxes,"
which I encountered
in my high-school days,
is hard to locate on-line
--at least, it's hard
to find all four stanzas.

But it's in two
places.

I found it first on Foxfire,
with a musical accompaniment,

http://www.geocities.com/stumpydog1/foxfire.html

and, second, as one of Mrs. Acton's
favorite poems.

http://aacton.gladbrook.iowapages.org/id19.html

You have to scroll down past
her all-time favorite, Robert Frost's
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,"
to get to Lew Sarett's
"Four Little Foxes."

It's worth the scroll, bittersweet
though the poem truly is.

While I was searching for it,
I came across Lew Sarett's obituary,
in the August 18, 1954 Beloit Daily News.

http://www.beloit.edu/~libhome/Archives/acoll/alum/sarett.html

There's a fine, meditative picture of
him in that article, which cites
"Four Little Foxes"
as one of his best-known poems.

And I now present it here,
as one of my own best-loved:

Four Little Foxes
by Lew Sarrett

Speak gently, Spring, and make
no sudden sound
for in my windy valley yesterday
I found
New-born foxes squirming on
the ground,
Speak gently.

Walk softly, March, forbear
the bitter blow,
Her feet within a trap, her blood
upon the snow,
The four little foxes saw
their mother go,
Walk softly.

Go lightly, Spring, oh give them
no alarm;
When I covered them with boughs
to shelter them from harm
The thin blue foxes suckled
at my arm,
Go lightly.

Step softly, March, with your
rampant hurricane
Nuzzling one another and
whimp'ring with pain,
The new little foxes are shiv'ring
in the rain,
Step softly.

By Lew Sarett, a poet, a professor,
an outdoorsman and guide.

I wish we could imagine a happy
ending here.

Lew Sarett
was an accomplished
outdoorsman.

I hope he found
a way to look after
those little foxes
so that they grew up
and lived good little fox
lives--
in Michigan or Montana,
or in the poet's head--
wherever Lew found them.

On-Line Closeness

How quickly a well-written blog
can make you feel
close to the blogger!

So, I felt as much rejoicing
to hear from Richie
that his new baby is here,
safe and sound, with
mother tired but happy--
as much rejoicing as if
I were a "real-world"
neighbor and friend.

For a picture of Little Sam,
go to:
Smart People in a Stupid World

It made me so happy
that I put the link on
my other blog,
"Reckon I Should Tell This?"
also.

Even though he's clear across
the Atlantic Ocean from me,
and even though
I may never see him
in person,
the thought that I may
get to watch him
growing up,
through his father's
blog posts,
has turned this
cold, snowy dawn
into
a delightful winter morning!

The New Yorker's "Notable Quotables"

Everybody does it!

Quips, comebacks, clever sayings.

Sometimes we're quoting and we know it.

Sometimes we even think we know who we're quoting.

But very seldom are we using the exact words of the quote--even when we believe that we are.

There's a great piece
on this topic, by
Louis Menand
in the current issue of
The New Yorker magazine:
"Notable Quotables."

Famously, no one in the film Casablanca
ever said, "Play it again, Sam."

And Churchill's famous phrase,
"blood, sweat, and tears"
has entered our common speech
but "toil" is
omitted.

Probably because "blood, sweat, toil,
and tears" does not suit
our sense of
the rhythm
of our language
so well as
the threesome does.

Intrigued?

Go enjoy the entire article
on-line at
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/

Rushing the Season

Here are some tulips
from a bygone April,
to cheer up
a foggy, frozen,
snow-flurrying day.



Enough of that
brisk north wind!
Some of us
here
are ready for
Spring!
 

Mary's New Blog

Ever do a Google search
on your own name?

I did that last night
and found another
blog with the title
"Mary's Musings."

It's a very nice blog,
too, although it hasn't
been active for
quite a few months.

Still,
finding it made me
want to have a blog
of my own
with a more distinctive
name.

I did a Google search
on
"reckon i should tell this?"
and found no blog
with that name.

So now there is one!
Mine.

reckon i should tell this?

Hope you've enjoyed reading
my own "Mary's Musings"
and that you'll drop in
on "reckon i should tell this?"
too,
from time to time.

The words in bold font, underlined,
above,
are a clickable link.

Just right-click on them,
and choose
"open in new window"
if you want to have both
my blogs
open at the same time
in your browser.

Happy reading!

Lincoln's Birthday

The calendar cycles,
and suddenly we are in a year
when Lincoln's birthday
falls on a Monday.

In his honor, here are some
tulips that I shot a few
years ago, although not in
wintry February.

Okay,
not so much in Lincoln's
honor as to add
some cheery color to
a gray February 2007
morning.

I had to actually have a look at
my kitchen calendar
to verify
that it's not a post office
and bank holiday.

Whew!

That'll be February 19,
the third Monday in February,
which Congressional wisdom
decades ago made
into a three-day weekend
by designating a
moveable date for Washington's
birthday.

It's commonly called 
Presidents' Day, 
thereby squeezing
nearly a century of history,
from Washington to Lincoln,
into one formal
commemoration.

When I was growing up,
in the 1930s,
the scene was more
generous.

First the birthday
of the Civil War president.

Then the birthday
of the Revolutionary War
hero and first
president of the United
States of America.

And in between--oh joy!
--in between:

Valentine's Day!

Which has been co-opted
from its religious significance
for many generations now--
and here is turned
to commercial profit.

But perhaps also,
somewhere, little children
are enjoying
home-made valentines,
using the time-honored
materials:
paper, scissors, paste,
and crayons--
and their happy
imaginations.

Wonder if cats
like valentines?

Ah--chicken/tuna
flavored valentines!

That might indeed
cheer up an overcast
winter's day.

Surfing the Blogger Scene

You know that you're bored when ...

you actually click on a link 
from a Share-Your-Blog
e-mail.

So, I lucked out,
found a pot o' gold 
at:

http://gabezblog.blogspot.com/ 

I read it from the bottom up,
lured in
by the moony little
leprechaun.

Thumbup to the Gabe-
and-Sandra 
soap opera!

Now I can put off  
recounting
to everyone
what it's like to
shower with a cat,
for one more day.

M&M is watching me
from a safe distance as I
wrestle with the
HTML requirements
here.

You have only
to imagine me occupying
the chair
behind her, in the photo
at the top of this post.

If you haven't already
slid down the URL
rainbow,
to check out the
leprechaun moon.

Snow Before Daylight

The first snow of the winter,
overnight on Groundhog Day,
and nicely limited to about an
inch on the ground, with lovely
piled overburdens on the 
branches of the shrubs and 
trees.

Flash lets you get good pictures of 
snow falling through the darkness.

 

Worth Reading: "How to Operate the Shower Curtain," by Ian Frazier

Speaking of passing showers:
While I was trying to use my own 
this morning, this great set of
instructions by Ian Frazier came 
into my mind.

http://www.newyorker.com/shouts/content/articles/070108sh_shouts

It's also from the January 8, 2007,
The New Yorker magazine, to which
I pointed you in an earlier post.  What
a great issue that was!

If you know Ian Frazier, you may
have already seen it. If you haven't
seen it, you know that you're in for
a treat.

If you don't know Ian Frazier, I think
you also are in for a treat. However,
he may be an acquired taste.

Please post a comment, and tell me
whether you like him or not.

Of course, those who shower without
curtains will most likely not be
interested.

For them, I promise a later tale of
taking showers with cats.