Jigsaw Puzzle

 

The pastor obviously wanted us to be thinking about the new year.  The reading was to be the beginning of Ecclesiastes 3, the sermon title in the bulletin was "Doorway to a New Beginning", and the first hymn was listed as 'This is a Day of New Beginnings".  I wasn't familiar with this particular hymn but the music is printed right above the words in the hymnal so I was pretty sure I could figure it out.  The church is small.  There is no praise group of singers up front leading the singing.  The deacon at the podium doesn't even count time.  The piano started playing and the congregation began to sing.  Think it was three bars in when I realized I was ahead of the piano.  I stopped singing until I thought I knew where the piano was and started up again.  Nope - lost the beat almost immediately.   I heard a twitter in the pew behind me - maybe more of a nervous giggle.  Realized that no one was singing anymore.  Looked up at the deacon.  He'd given up also.  The pianist continued on for the rest of the three stanzas until the song ended.  "Thank you for that piano solo."  quipped the deacon and the church broke out in laughter.  It became the running joke for the rest of the service.   Once home I checked YouTube to see how the song should be sung and found there are different versions of a hymn w/ that name.  Wondered then if the pianist was playing the tune from a different version - or - maybe the pastor was just trying to show that this year should be filled w/ laughter.

Amaryllis blooming again

Excerpts from the Sheriff's Report:

2:03 a.m. - Caller from bar reports a female left the bar driving recklessly.  Deputy located vehicle abandoned in a bank parking lot.

9:41 a.m. -  Caller reporting a male trying to get into the garage.  Caller says they received a text from their parent stating the male is a furnace repairman.

9:45 a.m. - Caller reports hitting someone on an ATV in the roadway.  One injured person complaining of leg pain.  Road isn't blocked.  ATV driver was not wearing helmet.  ATV came out of a driveway and did not yield right of way to automobile.  ATV driver transported by air ambulance.  Automobile sustained severe damage.  Parent of ATV driver cited for DNR violation.

11:35 a.m. - Caller reports they ordered 200 ounces of silver from Costco.  Shipment arrived at FedEx in Collegetown but the caller has yet to receive shipment.

11:50 a.m. - Call from property owner who received a trail camera photo showing male on property who is carrying a rifle.  Nobody has permission to be on the property.  They would have to go through a locked gate and past no trespassing signs.  Deputy in contact with coyote hunters with dogs.  Trespasser identified as a juvenile.  Verbal warning issued.  Property owner informed.

2:05 p.m. - Officer spoke with female over the phone.  She stated that her mother wants her gone by tomorrow and asked if an eviction was required.  Officer informed her since she is living in the driveway and not in the house an eviction is not necessary.

5:10 p.m. - Caller reporting a vehicle outside their house has a furnace pipe sticking out of the window with smoke coming from the pipe.  Vehicle has a trailer full of wood and is parked in the post office parking lot.  Owner of vehicle appeared to be asleep when deputy arrived.  Originally from the area and back from California, vehicle owner lives in his jeep.  He left his vehicle to go speak with his ex-wife and will move the vehicle to another location.

6:16 p.m. - Officer needs a tow truck.  He is stuck in snow.

10:30 p.m. - Complainant in lobby to report harassment.  Officer spoke with complainant who stated he is being harassed by different rap groups stating they are threatening him and spying on him in his home from another city.  He was given a statement to fill out.

11:49 p.m. - Officer observed two vehicles parked at boat landing.  Two people in the back of one of the vehicles who appeared to be engaging in extra-curricular activities.  Both parties were age 17 so officer asked if they were both consenting participants.  Both said yes.  Officer told them not to engage in this conduct in public and if anyone saw them they could be criminally charged.  They were told to leave the boat landing and make better choices.

Oak at the edge of the Swamp

Town Clerk Chris gave me a call.  The town where I serve as a Chief Election Inspector will need a February primary - but only 24 people can vote.  

There is a primary runoff in February if there are more than two people running for an office that will be on the April ballot.    For every election - federal, state, town, school, and most county offices - everyone in the town votes EXCEPT for the county board races.  Five years ago, after the last census, the county board/county clerk decided every board member should represent the same amount of people.  To do that they created new 'county districts'.  (They didn't have to do that since state law provides municipalities under 1000 people can stick w/ existing municipal lines.)   My town became a part of three larger 'county districts'.

All of the county board seats are up for reelection this year.  There is one board seat that needs a primary and a small portion of my town is a part of that 'district'.  24 people are registered to vote in that portion of my town. Even should all 24 voters vote early in the day, we can't close the polls since the state allows for same day voter registration.

Two things.  First, I don't mind holding a February primary but I don't like to have to explain to town residents why only some of them can vote this time.   The January 6th insurrection wasn't that many years ago and there is still some suspicion around the election process.   Second,  another area of my town 'governed' by a different county board rep has no one who filed to run.  In truth, there are another four 'districts' like that.  Since these 'districts' exist only for county board purposes - why not open them up to anyone who wants to be on the county board?  Might not need a February primary at all. (ha)

Winter in the Northwoods

 

Changing a pets routine isn't easy.  This week I decided to fill the bird feeders before Whip and I took our morning constitutional instead of the other way around.  Whip hasn't picked up yet that it's a permanent change.  When I let her out she headed out for the walk.  I called her back - the feeders are in the opposite direction.  She came racing back - well kind of.  Even w/ stout nails on each paw and four paws on the ground, every so often one of her legs would slide away from where she placed it.  This whole week has hovered around the magical 32 degrees.  Precipitation has come in freezing rain.  During the daytime some snow melts only to refreeze as ice overnight.  Any roads and paths have a glossy ice patina.  After watching her trying to navigate the driveway  I wasn't going to tackle the constitutional until I dug out my crampons.  Once the feeders were filled, Whip and I headed back inside for the rest of the morning routine:  she gets a treat by doing a trick; I call for the cats and give them treats in their specific spots; I sit down at the computer.  While I was at the computer my phone started playing a tune.  Why had I set an alarm for Friday morning?  Remembered then that Librarian Trevor had set every second Friday of the month as a volunteer meeting.   So this is how the pets feel when I change their routine.  

Post Note:  Drove into the village for the morning meeting.  Afterward picked up a coffee, my mail, and came home.  Good thing the plow guy leaves the snow in a mound by the house.  The car slid into a slow 90 degree turn in front of the house and only stopped when the tires hit the loose snow at the edge of that pile.

Mourning Dove

Read an article on the newest viral  'bird theory' this morning.  A TikTok user stated that white people all have some sort of bird decor in their homes.  According to that article multiple people commented that they didn't think they had anything w/ birds until they looked around and realized they had a lamp w/ a peacock base or rubber duckies dressed in various costumes on a shelf or were gifted something that had a bird motif on it.  I did just come inside from filling the outside bird feeders but not sure that counts.  It's winter so I have some small decorative plates w/ cardinals and titmouse birds hanging near the fireplace.  I thought about what I put out during the spring.  Yes, I have bird figurines I put in a shadow box in the spare bedroom.  How about summer?  Definitely.  Sister Connie gave me a peacock vase and I always put it atop the clock w/ a spray of real peacock feathers.  Autumn?  An orange hand painted (by Sister Connie again) owl that I usually set in among the house plants.  The obvious next question is "Is it white people or people in general that like birds?"   I'm guessing it's the latter - ethnicity has little to do w/ it.  The caves of Lascaux France have paintings of birds from 17,000 years ago.  Ancient Egyptians were big into bird motifs.  The god Thoth had the head of an Ibis, Horus the head of a falcon, and Nekhbet was a vulture.  Chinese art often depicts cranes, Mandarin ducks, and magpies.  It's easy to recognize the unique birds of Australia featured in Aboriginal figurines and other art forms.  The only thing the 'bird theory' teaches us is that you can make anything go viral just by adding some titillating overtones to it.

Jigsaw Puzzle

 It was my turn in the grocery check out line.   The checkout clerk greeted me w/ "How is your day going?"  I was in a talkative mood so I told her.  "Great so far.  I talked w/ Waste Management and they are going to pick up my garbage on my side of the road this winter."  Last week I'd gotten text messages from Waste Management two consecutive days that they were running late and would pick up my garbage on the next day.  As I said, the garbage can on the opposite side of the road was now buried up to it's cover in a bank of snow - partially from the snowstorm and partially from the county's snow plow.  On the third day, I managed to extract the bin from the drift, left it on my side of the roadway, and messaged Waste Management letting them know what I'd done and to please give me a call.   I knew calling Waste Management's help line wouldn't be of any use.  I'd tried that last year and the Arizona based hot line reassured me they would fix my issue but the local guys said they didn't care what the hotline said.  No call back yet from the local Waste Management so I drove the couple of miles over for a face to face.  Coordinator Nikki said she understood my predicament completely and would talk w/ the drivers when they got back from their routes.  She'd text me tomorrow.  The grocery checker didn't look up but mumbled a "uh huh" as if she was listening so I continued.  "Then I went to the Animal Shelter and made a donation."   The animal shelter had moved since the last time I'd been there.  They are mentioned often in the Sheriff's Report so I thought I should know where they were - just in case.  GPS got me there.  Didn't seem right to just say I wanted to see the facility so I gave them a donation.  The cashier was checking the price of my baking potatoes but managed a 'yep'.    "I treated myself to breakfast at the Toad House." I continued talking.  As I came into the city I'd stopped there for a latte and scone to-go and munched as I drove around. The checker announced my total and I paid.  Figured after all my prattling she'd be more careful about how she greeted customers.  No, she asked the guy behind me the same question.   Must be she's a glutton for punishment.

Calendar

 

The holiday season is over.  Time to do start up tasks for the New Year:

• Replaced the calendars.  I bought them back in August but remembered exactly where I put them.  In Haven, the calendar for the year is wildlife by Charlie Harper.  At first I thought his work was Cubist but looked him up and it's called Minimal Realism.  Reminds me a lot of  the Lamanozov figures I collected so assume this is my preference when it comes to art.  There is also the white board calendar which has to be wiped clean and redone.   I write the name of the month at the top.  Last year, all months were written in German.  This year all of the months will be in Spanish.  A small thing but I figure this way sooner or later I'll know the months in both languages.
• Packed away the blatantly Christmas decorations: the hanging sock by the fireplace, the santa figurines, the creche.  Everything else like the red balls, candles, greenery, snowmen, etc. remain as decor until spring comes and they will be replaced w/ pink bunnies and flowers.
• Pulled up my 2025 on-line file of yearly stats and noted that last year the 'new' plants/creatures I found here were a yellow-legged millipede, a yellow parasol mushroom, a maple spanworm moth, and a river otter.  Not sure if I should count the otter since I didn't get a pic of it but fairly sure that's what I saw in Gorgeous Gorge.  Also noted I volunteered over 150 hours, had guests for 35 days, and did everything on my monthly-to-do list except install a new furnace filter.  Since I run the air conditioner probably no more than 10 days each year, not having a new furnace filter isn't too terrible.   I used the 2025 file to create a 2026 file.  I deleted all of the contents out of the new 2026 file and am ready to keep track of this year. 
• Printed out and pasted '2025' on the plastic bin I throw receipts and other info in for the year.  I'll keep it around until I submit my fed/state taxes, throw a copy of the form in, click the top shut, and it will take it's place in the garage w/ bins from other years.   I'd cleaned out another bin in the autumn so have a new one ready for this year's ephemera.

Prism

Finally a sunny day.  I'd bought crystals last year to hang in the windows and packed them away w/ Yggdrasil's ornaments.   When I decorated the tree, I'd hung these prisms in the SE windows hoping they would catch sunlight and spread out little spectrums of light throughout the house.  Unfortunately since the week before Christmas until today we'd only had one day w/ morning sunlight and that day I'd left the house before sunrise to pick up Friend Nancy for breakfast.   Today w/o cloud cover the temp had dipped to zero but my house was filled w/ small color continuums everywhere.  As the sun rose in the sky the light show moved through the rooms too.  Fortunately in the winter here the sun makes a low arc so it shines directly into those windows for a long time.  I'll remove the crystals before spring.  The sun will have moved far enough toward the east again so it won't invoke the prismatic dancing lights.  In the Northwoods it's almost a hobby to find fun things to do during winter.

Blitzen welcoming in the New Year

 

My tradition for the end of the year is to pay any debts, donate to charities, and not stay up until midnight.  I paid all of my outstanding debts last Saturday when I paid property taxes.  Well, I do owe a cup of coffee to Friend Nancy for a bet I lost but she assured me she wouldn't let me forget it so I'm not too concerned about that one.  I made a donation to the charities I support yesterday.  At one time I made donations at different times during the year and then realized that when you donate it just signals the charity to send you even more requests for money.    Setting one time during the year to pay fixes the issue of donating multiple times during the year because I forgot I already had.   It doesn't resolve the deluge of begging letters/e-mails/texts during the rest of the year but now I'm OK tossing them unread.  When I was much younger I would party until midnight.  Finally I realized the arrival of midnight on New Year's eve was a lot like the arrival of the First Point of Aries overhead.  Useful but totally imaginary.  Only an artifice for the human need to quantify the world.  On the other hand a good night's sleep is priceless.

After the Storm

Sister Connie's birthday today.  I called her early in the morning to let her know what a beautiful day it was.  A thick fresh blanket of white snow covered everything.  She had planned on a 4-mile walk to celebrate the day but was now thinking it was too cold for that plus they too had received some snow and as she put it "A broken hip isn't in  my plans for this month."   

Overnight, I'd fretted that I shouldn't have put my garbage can out 'cause the wind might blow it onto the road.  At first light, I looked out my front door to check on it and the can was still in place!  Only the top fourth of it stuck out of the drift now so it wasn't likely to be going anywhere.   At 4 p.m. I received a text from the pickup company that they were running behind and would get it tomorrow.  Left the can in place.  If I were to move it I'd have to manually pull it out of the drift it's in and set it back atop the drift.  I'd go through another night worrying it might be blown into the roadway.  Also, I'm still miffed that the garbage pickup company insisted I leave the bin on the opposite side of the road.  If it was on my side of the road it would be at the edge of my driveway and easily accessible.  I'm kinda curious how they are going to extradite the bin.

I was snowbound unless I wanted to walk somewhere.  In the morning I worked on a jigsaw puzzle.  Whip thought the nearby futon would be a good place to stretch out and the cats curled up on the window seats on either side of me.  Glad they were happy to only watch and not try to 'help'.   The plow guy arrived around 1 p.m. and did an excellent job on cleaning off the driveway and around the front of my garage.  No where to go - most activities were cancelled because of the storm - just nice to know I could leave if I wanted.

Waiting out the storm

The first snowflakes of the storm began to fly as I walked out of church this morning.  My mind had wandered a bit while waiting for church to begin.  I'd made notes on prep I could do before this storm.  Back home I called for Whip and walked out to Sleipnir.  At the beginning of each month I water the plants overwintering in there.  Getting there means walking through ankle deep snow - if the forecast is correct it will be much deeper by tomorrow.  Watering them a few days early will save me making a new path through even deeper snow.   I wanted Whip out w/ me because she doesn't like storms.  Better to get her out and about now than later when I'd have to push her out the door.  Monday is garbage pickup day.  Technically, I'm suppose to have my garbage curbside by 6 a.m. but they never pick mine up before 11 a.m.   While the storm should end tomorrow morning I don't know when the plow guy will make it to my place.  I took the garbage out and heaved the bin up atop an existing drift.  Wanted it far enough back from the road so the plow could easily clear the shoulder.  Hopefully, the snow will fill in around it and keep it from blowing out onto the road.  The rest of the day was filled w/ making hot cider and watching the storm blow through.

Whip and Dunder

Only two things on the must-do schedule for today - pay property taxes and move Yggdrasil back to the workshop.  First I had to wake up.  In my dream I'd introduced the "." (period) tile to Words With Friends.  There are two per game, you can place it at the end of any word and start another word.  (i.e. BIRDS can become BIRDS.DOESNT).  Only rules are it must be at the end of a valid word and you can't put two periods together.  Once I woke up I realized (1) what conversation had caused me to dream that and (2) maybe I'm spending a bit too much time on WWF.

Town Treasurer Michelle opened up the town hall to collect property taxes this morning.  Property taxes can, of course, be mailed in or put in a drop box at the hall but some of us just like the personal touch of paying at the hall to a live person. I waited less than five minutes as the person in front of me finished up gossiping w/ her in the office. Then it was my turn for some gossip.  As I left another tax payer arrived.  She'll probably have a steady stream of people until she closes at 11 a.m.

I got down the case for Yggdrasil's ornaments.  Fortunately, I kept each individual ornament box so if I have a box left over it means I missed an ornament somewhere.  I worked on it while watching Svengoolie's flick "The Creation of the Humanoids".  By the end of the movie Yggdrasil was bare of ornamentation.  It was 9 p.m. but I moved the little tree over to the workshop in the dark.   The forecast is for snow tomorrow - a possible 10".  Much easier to move the tree now when there are only a couple of inches of the white stuff to go through.  Made sure the tree was in a nice spot, gave it a drink, and shut off the lights.  Sweet dreams until spring.

Pets at Christmas

I had told the pets they would like Christmas.  I opened some of their presents this morning.   Blitz received crinkle fish.  They are cylindrical, make a crinkle sound when grabbed, and have some catnip on them.  I threw one out on the floor for her to play with but as soon as she showed an interest in it Whip sauntered over, grabbed the fish and went over to a spot she could curl up with it.   She was a real 'dog in the manger'.  Dunder's present was a little fuzzy bird.  When a cat bats at it the little bird waves it's wings, moves along the floor, and makes a chirping sound.  It does that for awhile and then stops until the cat bats at it again and the routine starts up all over.   Blitz played w/ that until both she and Dunder became more interested in checking out bits of wrapping paper and empty boxes.  Whip got a soft stump filled w/ little squirrels that squeak when chomped on.  There are little squirrels strewn all over the house and Dunder is asleep in the now empty stump.  I tied some of the wrapping ribbons to Whip's harness.  When she walked past a cat would pounce after her.  Me ... Every meal was leftovers from last night and in between I made a dent in the Christmas cookies while watching White Christmas and playing w/ the pets.   Tomorrow will be soon enough to start picking up.

Russell & Donna

 

Brother Russell and Sister-in-Law Donna came over for Christmas Eve supper.  Yesterday I'd made out a time-table for what needed to be done and when.  Using that actually worked out rather well.  First, of course, was soup.  We had creamy tomato soup with a side of little glass dishes of raspberries topped w/ whipped cream and a sprinkling of crushed peppermint.  The next course was salad and I went w/ green and red bib lettuce leaves topped w/ feta cheese , dried cranberries, and sugared walnuts.  Dressing was a balsamic.  I also served some quick breads- pistachio, cherry, and banana/chocolate chip.  The filet mignons had been seared, finished off in the oven, and rested by the time we were ready for them as the entree.  Had a bernaise sauce simmering on the stove.   Zapped some peas last minute and everything arrived at the table at pretty much the same time.  Yeah!  By the end of that course we were all stuffed.  Had to keep going though - there were gifts to open.  I tried to make as much of a mess as I could.  In the middle of the night I'm sure the cats will be in and out of boxes and jumping into piles of tissue paper as if they were autumn leaves.  It wasn't until  Donna and Russell were about to leave that I realized I'd forgotten to serve dessert.  It was a plate of various types of cookies, fudge, and peanut brittle.  I wrapped them up and sent them home w/ two small boxes.  Neither Russ nor Donna have to work on Christmas.  Tomorrow they can munch on them while they watch movies.