weather eye

Dry Snow Day

Dry and crunchy.

This part of the world doesn’t often get fine powder-snow. I haven’t seen this weather since Wyoming–the particular pale tinge to a winter sky near the horizon, the dry crunch of several inches of snow, the wind coming fast and bright, air so cold and un-humid it sparkles like champagne. The road is a skating rink, the backyard a wonderland, the birdbath wearing a fuzzy white fur hat.

What with the wind it’s well below freezing, and has been all night. I have never forgotten the low moan of moving air against a house’s corners (Rattlesnake Wind is named after that sound) but I didn’t think I’d hear it here.

The melt is coming, or so the meteorologists say. It will be nice to have all this washed away so we can get back to walkies, morning runs, and the like…

…but I’m also enjoying the snow and song, for as long as it lasts. I’ll be working all weekend, so it probably didn’t matter that I snuggled in bed a little longer today, cuddling Boxnoggin and listening to the weather speak.

Monday will be warmer, my beloveds. See you then!

Shivering Thankful

Another snowpocalypse. This is getting depressingly regular, but at least this time it’s dry powder, not wet dense stuff, and there’s no freezing rain to coat everything, snapping branches plus power lines with its weight. Boxnoggin is mildly put out that he will not have walkies today, but the backyard is so cold and the snow so unpleasant on his tender tootsies he’s willing to be magnanimous, especially if I give him a treat or two.

Or four.

With the cedars gone the east wind smacks the back of the house, including my office window. Which is less than ideal…but nothing can be done, so here we are. At least the melt, when it happens, will give me plenty of fodder for the epic fantasy, where the main character is trekking across a frozen swamp and hoping spring will stave off for long enough to get to the other side. I think next they’ll hear the hunting horns of their enemies, because of course things can always get worse in one of my books.

Both bridges over the river are at a standstill, and all authorities are pleading with people to stay put, don’t try to travel, just for the love of god stay off the roads. I am wincing for everyone who feels they have to go out in this mess, especially those who literally can’t afford to miss work. Weather events are one thing, but late-stage capitalism is a much worse catastrophe, and it seems goddamn near unending. Each week brings a fresh hell; I am legitimately surprised guillotines haven’t made a serious comeback.

The snow is pretty, though, and I’ll build a fire in a wee bit. The last of the cedar will probably go up the chimney today. If this had to happen, things worked out as well as possible. I’m no optimist–I swear–but when I think of how bad it could be I’m damn near shivering with thankfulness.

A lot of dry snow is being kicked up by the wind. I haven’t seen this kind of feathery airborne stuff since Wyoming. The good news is, it’s clearing off the tree branches even as it rattles against the windows. I’d forgotten how clear the air gets in this kind of low-humidity freeze; it damn near sparkles, like champagne. I’m not going to go trudging around in the drifts, but it is rather beautiful.

I wish you toasty warmth and a bit of peace today, my dears. If I am very good and get all my projected work done, I might even play hooky with a sort of noir-ish thing…

One White Goose

You have to look past the molehills…

I would apologize for the blurriness of this snap, but what you can’t see is Boxnoggin’s leash wrapped about my legs as he tries desperately to make the acquaintance of a flock of Canadian geese–and one brilliant white number. I could not tell if it was albino or a domestic Anatidae that had decided to go feral, a wild white goose of some other kind hanging out with distant cousins, or a personification of the frost we’ve been having lately.

It’s a wonder I got the photo I did, frankly. Sixty-plus pounds of enthusiastic dog would have been ever so happy to drag me over every single molehill in his quest for literal gooseflesh. He had to settle for a sonic assault, which did precisely nothing but make my head ring.

I can say that the other geese were quite protective, and huddled around their semi-cryptid (if only by comparison to its fellows) relative. But Boxnoggin and I stayed far enough away to not provoke a mass flight and all the mess that entails–since, after all, they tend to unload before takeoff, like seagulls. Which took some doing; the damn dog was utterly beside himself.

“You idiot,” I kept saying, “what would you do if you caught one?” But such considerations do not belong in Boxnoggin’s head. He is a creature of the eternal Now, and at that moment his deepest longing in life was to chase some frickin’ geese.

Unfortunately (according to him) he was dragged free of the park and we continued on walkies. There might be another flock resting there today, depending on when we get out the door; I’m not really looking forward to it even though it’ll make poor Box’s day.

Happy Friday, my beloveds. The weekend looms, I’ve got an elvish city to wreck–the attacking army has reached the walls, which is a nice change from previous days–it’s been a rather bumpy ride to get here. Oh, and I have a new subscriber tier to test out, so we’ll see how that goes.

See you next week…

Deepened With Waiting

It’s been very chilly for this part of the world; yesterday the Prince insisted he knew how to split wood. I found the axe, he rolled out the cedar chopping-block the guys were kind enough to leave us (more about that in a moment), and by golly and garters, he split wood. He used a rubber mallet to wedge-and-maul a lot of it, I am told, and he was so proud. This achievement matched that of the Princess, who built her very first fire from scratch (instead of using a Duraflame log) while I was busy battling the hordes at the grocery store.

We have the firewood because of the cedar that came down in the backyard during that awful windstorm. The neighbor across the back fence got the rest of the cedars taken out wholesale (barring two small survivors to the north of the fir tree) a few days ago, and now when I glance out my window there’s…a house, instead of the green screen of beautiful trees.

This is not ideal, but given that the whole row went into shock when he had some fly-by-night grifters–who had no clue what they were doing, and overpriced as well–come out to “trim” some of the cedars years ago, it was inevitable. His bad choices have had consequences, and despite that I’m being gracious.

For now.

There are still a core of reasonable people masking up in public places, and for that I am grateful. Masked folks are allowed much further into my personal space than disease-breathing naked-facers, and I hope some of the latter have been shamed by my visible (even behind my own mask) disgust with their complete lack of sense.

I finally got to the attack on the elvish city yesterday; it was a good day’s work. I do think I have to go back and rethread the final bits of it, since I want a particular person to find the narrator as she stands watching doom approach. But that’s easy enough, and I know precisely what happens for the next eight thousand words or so. I’ve been looking forward to this, especially the section titled Naciel’s Run, for well over a year. I like letting things marinate, sure, but I was actually unable to work on this book due to stoppage at the publisher end instead of the usual reasons.

I can only hope it will have deepened with the waiting.

It should warm up to the usual damp winter chill by tomorrow, but we’ve one more frigid day. I suppose once Boxnoggin is walked I’ll clean the fireplace and get another blaze going. The cedar smells lovely, even if I would rather have the trees, and it takes a lot of pressure off the heating system. The dog, of course, was extremely hesitant about a change, but soon realized he could bask in his nice cushioned bed, radiant heat bathing his every hair, and has grudgingly decided this is acceptable as long as the humans are closely supervised while poking at the warmy-box.

Imbolc has passed and the light strengthens. My office is far too bright; hopefully we’ll get something else planted as a privacy screen once the fence is repaired. If it’s not one thing, it’s another–and now my coffee is finished and Boxnoggin needs his walkies.

Onward to Thursday. Here’s hoping it’s a quiet one, I have the ruin of a city to write…

Fire of Many Sources

Got up, took Boxnoggin out, made coffee, built a fire. We have to use up those cedar rounds, after all, and it’s cold enough. I’m feeling very Foxfire Books right now. I mean, it’s not scrubbing the bristles off a boiled pig carcass, but it’s something. (The dog, wiser than I, has already gone back to bed.)

I finished John Rechy’s City of Night this past weekend. I can see why the book was so formative, especially for the non-Shakespeare bits of My Own Private Idaho. A lot of it rang very true; it’s amazing how much street life doesn’t change through decades. Of course, the experience of a male hustler is significantly different than that of a young girl, and yet the faces are absolutely the same. The beat is there, even if the music is variations. I kept thinking Rechy was what Kerouac so desperately wanted to be, but didn’t have the courage (or the writing chops, the honesty, or the discipline) to pull off.

But we all know my feelings on Kerouac. Anyway, next up is Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness, which feeds The Black Land’s Bane, naturally. A great deal of the current trilogy was inspired (very loosely) by The 13th Warrior–though I never read Eaters of the Dead–while both 13th and Eaters rely heavily on Ibn Fadlan. There are even, I am told, great chunks of Eaters taken wholesale from translations, which shows that at least Crichton knew to take from the best.

The rest of Black Land is Tolkien, with a heavy dose of influence from Neil Price’s magisterial work on Viking magic. No book ever springs from one source; many are the freshets and streams which make the river of a story. And I’ve got to get this elvish city sacked in the next few days’ work, dammit. It’s taken too long, I want falling masonry, flame, and swordplay.

Of course, I’ll have to nurse the fireplace along until the kids are up to help. It takes a lot of strain off the rest of the heating system, plus the cedar is very fragrant. The sky is lowering and it smells like snow, though I’m sure we’ll only get sleet as the next warm front pushes in. I hear there’s actual white stuff (again) a few hundred miles north, but here the river often manages to keep such things at bay.

I mean, it didn’t over Yule–that ice storm was something else, and the winds right after brought down the cedar we’re burning now–but generally we escape real long-term cold. I’m sure many of the insect eggs burrowed into the ground to wait for spring are dying off, as well as the slug and snail eggs too. Which is a mercy; their numbers have been ravaging for a while.

It’s about time to go feed the fire again. I can hear it popping happily from my office. At least the chill means there’s a lovely draw up the chimney, and the ash, worked into compost, does wonderful things for the garden. Boxnoggin will yawn and mosey out as soon as I make a move toward brekkie, and though he’ll complain the cold will also force both of us to move rather swiftly. Not a bad prospect, all told.

I’m not feeling well lately. I suppose it doesn’t matter much. Putting my head down and simply enduring has carried me through worse. At least there’s the fire, the winter light, and the prospect of actually getting some damn wordcount.

It’ll have to be enough.

Bryophyta Courage

Moss. Mycelium. Maybe some lichen too.

I’ve been obsessed with moss lately. I mean, I already liked it, but then there happened along the #Mosstodon tag on the fedi. (There’s also the #LichenSubscribe tag, which pleases me deeply, and let’s not even talk about the donkeys.) So I’ve been happily taking pictures of winter velvet, no doubt also pleasing a few botanists and biologists curious about such things.

Heaven knows there’s never any shortage of moss around here even in summer, though it does tend to get a bit dry and crackly. I won’t run out of subjects to point the cell phone at, that’s for sure.

I finally wrote the river race that’s been knocking around in my head for over a year, and today I get to set up the destruction of an entire elvish city. The elementalist does need to have a chat with the king about his parenting methods before then, perhaps; I’ll get there as the story–and the Muse–wills.

One of the things I love about moss is that it grows in places no other self-respecting plant would find even remotely acceptable. It creeps into cracks, feeds on detritus, covers the garbage left behind. Hell, it’ll even grow on bare rock, especially if its best bud lichen is around. Moss takes adversity as a challenge, like Bugs Bunny takes a thrown gauntlet.

Anyway, this crop is merrily growing on a creosote-soaked railroad tie repurposed to hold back perhaps-contaminated topsoil. It fries in summer and drowns autumn through spring. The locale is terrible for any living thing, but there’s the moss, happily soaking its wee roots, lifting its many green fingers. Some has spread to the rocks and small chunks of concrete below, because even stone is friable when you’ve got the sort of time moss does.

One can learn a lot from dear old Bryophyta. And with that happy thought, I wish you a pleasant weekend.

Cookie Snow

Let it snow…cookies!

The ice storm has settled over us like a broody hen. If I take Boxnoggin out through the back garage door we don’t have to negotiate the deck stairs. That means going past the Mad Tortie’s kingdom, so he has to be harnessed and snubbed. The Mad Tortie is a bit taken aback by this turn of events, since we all know Boxnoggin likes to play rough and the Tortie has no desire for any such shenanigans, so the sooner this weather eases up the better for everyone. Still, it’s nice to have options–and not to be dragged off the bloody deck at the end of a leash, ending in a bone-snapping heap.

If the power holds there will be more holiday baking today. In the past week, there has been a positive cyclone of cookie-making and the like; you can see some delicious results above. I’m quite enamored of the new snowflake cookie-cutters, they’re my absolute favorite. The Princess has promised more in that direction, and also some challah. All we need now is for the electricity to keep going as it has been.

If the grid tanks under the weight, well, we’ll hunker for the duration. We’re as prepared as it’s possible to be.

I wish you a pleasant holiday, my beloveds, with as much excitement or peace as you prefer. I’ll be back on the blog sometime after Boxing Day, and of course I’m over on Mastodon and CounterSocial near-daily.

Be safe out there.