nog?

o good grief. is nothing sacred? sugar cookie eggnog? pumpkin? if only because it's a seasonal libation, let egg nog be pure and unadulterated and traditional - with the only flavoring the time-honored hint of nutmeg. okay, and maybe a little brandy.

post thanksgiving

after a heavily techno day of shopping black (and pink!) friday deals online and assessing students' tech projects, it's nice to end the day at the other extreme - on the couch in front of the fireplace listening to the first strains of windham hill christmas music while turkey stock simmers on the woodstove and fills the house with good smells.

the other turkey

along with the fall decorating and the cranberry-orange relish, a new thanksgiving tradition has begun - a yearly hand turkey from the baby girl. i'll save them from one thanksgiving to the next and may eventually add them to the fall decorating cache. i hope it will be a fun tradition for her on a day when there are not many kid-centered activities - and it will be a chance to compare artistic technique from year to year. that said, behold the first offering, traced by grammie and colored by the baby girl. please note that most of the strong coloring is within the traced shape and that the young artist has carefully chosen classic turkey feather colors from her box of 16 crayons! hand turkey #1 @ 17 months. happy thanksgiving!! (don't forget to take the poll in the sidebar ------>)

first snow

it's hard to focus in the dark, in the snow. but i wanted to try to capture it as it came as a surprise. time to go to bed, tonight with the outside light on, so i can watch the season's first flakes drift past the window as i fall to sleep.

thar she blows

day 8 of a bothersome cold and already i have been through two of those cubical boxes of tissues. on my return trip to the pharmacy, where they know me by now, i compare the cube and the rectangle, thinking they are all the same tissues. not so! the rectangle contains 132 tissues, the cube only 60. the tissues in the rectangle are bigger than those in the cube. and the rectangle is more expensive, but not by much. since my tissue holder is for a cube, i wonder if i can take the tissues from the rectangle, fold 'em in half, and stuff them in the empty cube. because at the rate i'm going through tissues, i'll use up those 60 cube tissues by tuesday.

overnight ice

yesterday water at this familiar spot was still and black, the kind of pool that looks to be bottomless. overnight, temperatures dropped sharply and wind picked up. this morning - ice, from one bank to the other. as i watched, oak leaves skittered and twirled across the surface in the wind, the first skaters of the season.

drab saturday

a hydrangea dried beautifully on the plant, its translucent flower petals representing the most color in the landscape on a drizzly grey morning.

the end.

remember those pansies from posts past? just the other morning, i picked a few for a tiny kitchen window vase and marveled at the fact that there were still flowers blooming in northern new england in november. but alas, last night's temperatures were too much for them and they succumbed to the frost. it was time.

lucky numbers

while shutting down for tonight and packing up for tomorrow, i glanced at the display on my cellphone as it powered down - just in time to glimpse a unique sight. by the time i turned the phone back on and retrieved the camera from its zippered case, a minute had passed and i had missed recording the serendipitous moment: 11:11 on 11/11. perhaps i'll catch it on 12/12, shortly after midnight.

the last planting

fifty assorted daffodil bulbs planted in the far corner at the edge of the woods, just in front of the too tall stump. fifty more will go in tomorrow all in a clump and in a spot visible from the windows. daffodils hold such promise in their squat little forms. it makes planting on a chilly wet november day well worth the effort.

november rain

rain in early november brings down the last of the leaves...lilac, beech, some oak. here you can barely see the roof of this summer cottage for all the leaves. very soon, gusty winds from the north will clear the roof and scatter the leaves skyward. fall is drawing to a close.

election day

i voted.
now i am crossing my fingers.