By Dick Brooks
Capital Region Independent Media
I awoke to find that the weatherman had sprinkled an inch or so of fluff over my backyard and yes, I’m holding him personally responsible.
I certainly didn’t ask for it, God being just and Santa on his yearly break. I’ve got to blame someone so it’s the weatherman. It’s his own fault — if he’d stop lying to me, maybe I’d trust him more. Maybe!
I had my coffee and a nice hot bowl of oatmeal (don’t you just love Wilford Brimley?), got dressed for the weather we’ve been having lately. I wrestled three pairs of boot socks into submission, pulled my flannel-lined jeans over my long johns, donned a couple of sweaters, dug my mittens out of the bottom of the coat closet where they go to nest, fed my rabbit fur mad bomber’s hat and plunked it on top of my head, wrapped six or eight feet of scarf around my neck and over my face before squirming into my orange camouflage jacket with the genuine faux fur collar. Thus attired, I waddled to the porch door.
I was greeted by a blazing ball of fire in the sky! Instead of throwing myself prone in the snow and chanting tribal incantations like many of the other native people around me, I proceeded towards the garage. Being older and wiser and having once seen it on the Discovery Channel, I realized that this foreign object was called the sun and is occasionally seen in these parts. The temperature was a pleasant surprise also; it had soared above zero and was rapidly approaching five above.
Before de-fluffing the driveway, I decided to fill the bird feeders first. We have this well-trained flock of chickadees that let me know when the feeders are getting low. They sit in the bushes, ticked-off looks on their faces, hurling insults in bird language that I’m sure would get their little beaks washed out with soap if their birdy mothers heard them.
After shoveling a couple of tons of birdseed, I rested on my shovel handle and read the latest chapter of my backyard book. After a snowfall, it’s amazing what one can learn by looking at the tracks in the fresh snow. There were deer tracks coming out of the woods, leading directly to the evergreen bushes outside the kitchen window, or I should say the formerly evergreen bushes. Bambi and the bunch have trimmed them to the point that there isn’t much green. Venison is moving higher and higher on my favorite foods list.
There are bird tracks everywhere, looking like the stitching on an old quilt. Intermingled with the bird tracks are the tracks of the ever-hopeful neighborhood cats who wander through every day to get their daily dose of chickadee abuse.
Hippity hop tracks and a small sack of burglar tools under the squirrel-proof bird feeder mark the passage of some of the local horde of squirrels. So many stories, if you know how to read them. There’s a set of large round tracks that follow the perimeter of the yard near the woods, probably a large dog, a bear or maybe a hippo. If you come to visit, I’ll show them to you; maybe you can identify them, they’re back there near the emu tracks.
Well, enough of this standing around. The driveway is calling and the chickadees have almost emptied the feeders again.
One thing that few people know about me is that I’m an award winning poet so I thought I’d include a winter poem I wrote a few years back for your enjoyment.
“Robert Frost killed this guy I knew.
This guy, Bob,
was one of life’s hounded, harried characters,
always rushing and being rushed.
One winter day though — while waiting
in the library
for his kid,
he picked up this book of poems and read
‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Eve.’
It hit him like a bat,
he bit on the whole idea — peace, quiet, time.
He rushed out the door and headed for the
nearest wooded area.
While standing there, sucking in the scene,
he was run over by a snowmobile.
They said he died accidentally,
but I know better–
he was Frostbit!”
Thought for the week — Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year.
Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.
Reach columnist Dick Brooks at whittle12124@yahoo.com.
