Weather, winter, grey (gray), icy paths, salted cars, real headaches and the pretty of winter is gone. Today. Decidedly Today.
Apparently two jet streams are still streaming.
The peonies were never pruned before snow came this year. That moment when it’s too late to care, to put-the-garden-to-bed is never noticed though it’s always an awkward question of which is the right day to transition from geraniums to chrysanthemums on the front porch. Each fall these cues come from the farmers market and looking around the neighborhood. This year I thought I was ahead with the raking of the dying back day lilies in late fall and pruning suckers off the apple trees (or was it last year? I always get that term mixed up as I’m certainly more familiar with the October we just had than the one thats coming. So shouldn’t it be called THIS since it’s more familiar?). Now winter is measured by the amount of snow on Gram’s glass table in the back yard of which about a foot lingers yet, and the glare ice a couple inches thick is still in the walkway to the car.
Side streets are narrow since width is taken up by snow and ice, but yet the seagulls still circle above in downtown Portland. We’re warm and light fires in the fireplace, sweaters in stacks on chairs and cozy blankets are on the floor in front of the couch and last nights roast is still in the pot on the back porch, I should go get it now.
A change of heart— it is pretty beautiful. Monochromatic blue-greys, layers of corduroy and the mittens I bought at a Woodfords Church fair remind me daily that this time too will keep moving, transitioning. I’m not sure why our backyard squirrel still looks fat, maybe he is since Charles keeps the bird feeder mostly full.
What a winter.
margo halverson 