At the closing of the year

The photo below was taken by Laura Erickson and is from the Crane Lake Nature blog

The year is at its end. Time is spent.  Many things said and done; so much more that could only be felt.  This week is the time-between-times, when the year turns bringing the solitude of winter months.  Those are the days and hours of introspection and germination that bring a soul's desolation or brilliance.  I am no great poet so at this low tide of season's change I will share with you the perfect words of another.  God bless.

Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate 
    When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
    The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
    Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
    Had sought their household fires. 

The land's sharp features seemed to be
    The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
    The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
    Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
    Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
    The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
    Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
    In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
    Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
    Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
    His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.

Getting Ready for Santa

Here is my little cherub cleaning up the front room as we get ready for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Pictures part one

We survived the Turkey time travel. I have will never travel between October 1 and May 1 ever again. Boo did very well under the circumstances of delays, snow storms, and strange places. Here are some pictures from my camera (Rick's has better ones, but I've not got them downloaded yet)

Shiori and Obachan

Rick, Boo, and Tippy

Her first plane ride

This was a couple days after we got home, but Boo found a chocolate bar that Ojichan had given her.  She got it open and quite a bit consumed before I realized what had happened.  So of course I took pictures before taking the chocolate away.
 *grin*

Fall Pictures

Well I have lots of pic from the last few days of Halloween fun and Leaf raking.  So I'll post a few for all to enjoy.  I'll try and post some more later as I get them organized.

Spiders!!!!

There was some spider wrasslen done today.  

She darn near took the poor thing's head off.

But she's too nice to do that.

 

So they called it a draw.

And they kissed and made up like best friends.

And then we took a break from decorating and had pizza.

The End

Murder

They murdered my favorite tree this morning. A back hoe ripped it from the ground in less than 2 minutes.  I've been crying ever since.

Pyrus calleryana - Bradford

Dr Who

There are many things that cause a grown adult to suddenly turn into a giddy child.  A certain candy or the memory of a place and time, even a person.  How apropos then is it that one of my favorite sayings comes from the very character that makes me school girl giddy.

"There's no point to being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes"  The Doctor.

For years of my young life, as early as I can find memory truth to tell, I have been a Dr Who fan.  Thank you KUED for a bright spot of both British humor and good SciFi to shape my young mind.  Just as droves of young geeks will debate the words of Spock or the quantum-thermodynamics of a lightsaber, I cling to my Tardis and ride a wave of Dr. centric geekdum.

It was formally announced - less than an hour from this blog writing - that Dr Who will be filming in Utah.  This is my home state and my current living location.   Being the self respecting Whovian that I am I promptly posted it to Facebook and emailed a number of Whovian friends. I would have twittered, but I don't have a cell phone and I don't do twitter.  The point is the word had to get out and fast.

Many people flock to events like a visit from a politician or a religious leader, but not I.  I would do almost anything to simply stand off to the side silently while they filmed so that later I could, with renewed glee, say 'I was standing way off to the side when they filmed that!'

Some may think that's silly, and maybe it is, but feeling child like glee for a beloved character/show is much more world friendly than a political rally filled with hate or a protest march because you don't like what someone said. 

I'll take my giddy Whovianess any day and try to be happy knowing I was at least in the same state as the Tardis, the Dr. and his world.