‘Tis the Season

Good morning and welcome to another week.

I looked at the Word of the Day prompt yesterday and saw that it was HUNGER, which I had nothing to write about. I cooked dinner at the seniors’ home and we were all quite well fed. So, unless I wanted to write about my hunger to finish reading my book in the afternoon.

The word prompt this morning at Word of the Day is WADDLE, leading me to think of ducks and sincerely hope there are no ducks waddling around out there this morning. I trust the wild things have some little voice, or inner sense that tells them “It’s time to go.” The sandhill cranes stopped here en route earlier this month, but they didn’t stay as long as they usually do. At least I didn’t see any Saturday. Good thing.

Our next item on the agenda is a major giving of thanks for the fact that we have electricity again. The cats woke me up before 5:30 to let me know the power was off — at least I suppose that was their intent. Power was off for over half an hour in all; I stumbled into the bathroom to check the wall clock. And the cats both decided they absolutely had to go out. And I regretted my last decision before I went to bed: I’d put off charging my cell phone until morning.

Our is not a delightful place today, as October has decided to come in quite lion-like this time around. The snow started yesterday around 1:30 pm while we were at the dinner table and continued….and continued…and is still in the process of continuing. We’ve got about 6″ on the ground now.

The snow came initially on a strong wind from the north, but now there’s just an accompanying light breeze. A good wind would help the trees, sweep them of all this snow. This is heavy, sticky snow, perfect for snowball fights and snowmen. Horrible for driving. Probably brought down a power line or two — or maybe someone on their way to work slid into a power pole?

This weight of snow is crushing for trees and shrubs. Last night I noticed our 3-metre amur maple with its branches hanging very low and feared they’d break down, so I went out with a broom to knock the snow off. I did the nine-bark branches as well; these are our only two really valuable trees near the house. Looks like I’ll have to do it again this morning. The poplars along the west side of the yard, which still have most of their leaves, are really drooping as well.

But this can’t stay! It’s not unusual to get flurries in September, but we usually only get our first real snowfall the last week in October. There’s a lot of canola lying in swaths under all this snow, waiting to be combined.

I wish merchants had a bit more of inner sense that would tell them when it’s the proper time to put up seasonal displays. I’d be happy to see Halloween start in October, not August. And when we were in the city on Thursday, two Lowe’s employees had just set up their tall artificial Christmas tree in the entrance. WAY too soon! In Walmart and other stores, Christmas candles and decorations are starting to shove over the Thanksgiving and Halloween stuff on the display shelves.

By the way, the fancy fonts I’ve used for this post are variations of LIONELO from Edric Studio over at 1001fonts.com