scattered thoughts on the last Wednesday of November

Morning at the farmette.






Sunrise. Cheepers are out!






This is the time to indulge in the colors of November.












Back at the farmhouse. I take out my computer and mull over the morning stories.

A commenter noted how she did not like the word blog. In reading this I realized right away that this one seemingly insignificant detail -- the word "blog" -- has been irking me too, in all the years that I have been keeping a (hold my nose in disdain) blog. When I travel and people ask me about my various postings, I never admit to "blogging." Not only is the letter configuration unlovely, but the associations are (in my mind) also unpleasant. Blog conjures up (for me) a writing style that blurts out onto the pages of the Internet strong statements, for impact value.

You'll argue that there are blogs that have nothing to do with opinion or with the harsher realities of life. There are food blogs, photography blogs, travel blogs -- doesn't Ocean share at least some of those same pleasant intentions?

Perhaps. Even so, the word seems somehow offputting. Requiring an apology. I blog. I'm sorry. Writing a column for your local daily or weekly doesn't have such connotations. Can I just say "I write, using photos as illustrations?"


Next:

After breakfast, Ed wants me to watch with him a youtube video. Oftentimes, he'll have picked something that is up my ally. Perhaps a piece with some amusement value.

This time it is a perfectly serious instructional clip showing how you can take a "lightly soiled" diaper and mix its contents along with potting soil to make an excellent planting mixture. Interested? He asks. I shake my head. Clever, but the dead of winter is not the time to get me excited about repotting all my home plants.


Next:

We have had a running theme these past few weeks -- about the concept of relativity. Appropriate, given that I believe we're just at an anniversary of the publication of Einstein's work on the topic. But our discussions are less about the spacetime concepts and more about the ideas of good and the not so good.

Take geese, for example -- a nightmare for Madisonians, but perhaps splendid from a naturalist's perspective.  We have a lot of geese in this town and I thought tonight how, despite my distaste for all that they bring to our community (to take the diaper discussion one step further -- we have an abundance of geese droppings on walkways and bike trails around town), on a November evening, the flight of these birds toward the wetlands just east of the city is quite magnificent.

Ed and I are taking a (somewhat muddy) walk along what not too long ago were ski trails and we watch the geese take flight and really, much as I wrinkle my nose at the mere mention of the great Canadian bird, it is a lovely sight.






Next:

Here are two things that are indeed good, in fact without doubt -- great: first (chronologically, not in order of importance) -- our early morning breakfast.






And secondly -- a surprise text from my younger girl. She tells me that she and her husband have enough time to detour (on their long drive to Chicago) for a meal in Madison and could I possibly join them? Could I!






(For dessert we split our favorite peanut butter cookie.)






It's drizzling right now and tomorrow offers more of the same November wetness, but the air will smell of leaves and mushrooms and the car will get a good rinse and the cheepers will appreciate the disappearance of the last snow and I'll be able to shed my jacket and, like today, step outside (for a few minutes anyway) with just a sweater on.





All relative, Ed would say. All relative.