Tuesday, January 22, 2019

noises

Storm warnings, coming at a fast and furious pace lead me to reconfigure the day: why mess with irrelevant errands when the roads are supposed to turn slick and then slicker? Instead, Ed asks (from the warmth of our bedroom) -- want to test your hearing?

If there is a self help video/program/protocol that will assist in anything and everything in a given day, Ed will find it.
Well, he tells me, after having had me listen to a range of frequencies at very low pitches, your left ear's good. Within normal range. Hearing in your right is less than perfect.

I shall, going forward, listen to the finer tones of dialogue with my left.

Before the storm hits hard, I go off to feed the cheepers and he goes out to fix the belly of my car. Some protective piece of aluminum has come loose and the noise it makes when it drags over anything on the road is... disturbing. He comes in, warms up, goes out, comes in, I dust him off of both snow and salt (your car is one big salt mine!) and we sit down to breakfast. It'll do for now. Just don't go over great mounds of snow!

(mr. tough guy next to the kitchen flowers)


farmette life-2.jpg


You know, he continues, we now have a second, even smaller cat hanging out with Stop Sign. They are both in the garage. Maybe it's her daughter/son.

Two prowling cats? And a hawk? And we still have mice visiting the farmhouse? What's with these animals?! I go out to the garage to set up an additional feeding station.

And then we wait for the skies to open up and for the snows to come down hard.

And of course, somewhere in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop...

(At the farmhouse, she is thinking about which "vegetables" to cut up for her babies.)


farmette life-8.jpg



(My culinary suggestions are often rejected...)


farmette life-10.jpg



Snowstorms are unpredictable. You know one is heading your way, but "your way" is a loose idea and the severity of the storm depends on too many factors that are as yet too hard to pin down. Our own snow event did not come at 1, as had been announced. It did not come at 11, as those same weather people quickly sought to correct. Nor did it come at 3 or 4. It began just as I set out to drive Snowdrop home.

By the time I was back at the farmhouse, we were in the thick of it: the storm had made its way to the farmette lands. All was terribly subdued but for the steadily falling snow.

It is amazing how in winter, a storm can be so quiet.