Altivo

Here we are, the Solstice is done, the days are getting longer already. It's the Eve of Christmas Eve, and I imagine the shopping malls are crazy and crowded. But out here in the boonies, everything is eerily quiet. The din of passing traffic on our closest roads is much reduced and even the neighbors' noisy cows are unusually silent. The sky is partly clouded, but the sun breaks through at intervals for a few minutes. Our shopping is done, the cards and packages mailed and the personal gifts wrapped to exchange tomorrow evening as is the family custom here.

Ham is thawed in the fridge, but I still have to make a mince pie and a "festive" salad. Otherwise, the peace has settled on us for a few days. (I hope.) With the temperature around 40°F the horses are out in their yard without blankets on. No doubt they will roll in the mud but that's their way of celebrating.

To all our friends, wherever you are and whatever holidays you celebrate, here is good cheer and best wishes. A new year is coming, may it be better and less dark than the last few have been.

You can find our holiday message, with illustrations, at This Link. (Approx. 4 MB photos and text.)

So I was urged to celebrate this made up holiday by posting pictures of the feast. Therefore I declare that tomorrow Gary and I will observe Wolfenoot with a roasted turkey and stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, gravy, and probably green bean casserole. I'm not sure what the dessert will be yet, but most likely pumpkin pie without crust but with whipped cream (as a whole pie was given us by our hostess yesterday.

The part of the observation that requires hiding small gifts for the wolf or dog lovers in the household we will skip, but I'm sure our dog, Laddie, will be getting more than enough treats.

The ponies will wear their festive blankets in honor of the occasion. The cats will, as cats usually do, ignore it all as something beneath their dignity.

Mandated pictures of the festival table will be forthcoming as demanded, including the crustless pie posing as the moon with a bite taken out of it. Stay tuned!

We are committed to go to Gary's brother's house in Wisconsin for tomorrow afternoon. Last I heard, they aren't making turkey, but lasagna instead, which is fine by me. But Gary still wants to have turkey with stuffing and cranberries, so I'll be doing that over the weekend sometime. At first I thought I'd just get one of those boneless rolled turkey roasts, but after two places didn't have any and the third place wanted $4 a pound, I went with a regular Jennie-O 12 pounder. Not that it's a big deal, as I've cooked roast turkey dinners probably more times than my mother ever did at this point. It all happens automatically. I can even be half asleep. The trick is getting the frozen turkey defrosted in time to cook it. I'm hoping to make it on Saturday, so that's cutting it close. The 12 pound ice cube is in the fridge now to at least start the process. They claim on the wrapper that you can defrost it in a microwave, but I'm dubious. I have done it before by immersing it in cold water and changing the water every half hour or so.

Still no side effects from the COVID-19 booster. The small sore spot on my arm is starting to itch rather than being painful, which is what happened with the original doses as well. We both feel a bit run down, but we're probably sleep deprived and over caffeinated.

Today was warmer, got up to about 50°F, so no blankets for Archie and Asher. Tomorrow, however, is supposed to be much colder, with possible rain or snow showers in the afternoon, so they will be blanketed. The blankets are waterproof, which should help keep them from getting overly chilled. When I shut the barn tonight, two cats were in their straw-filled cardboard box bed, while the third, Emma, was asleep on Archie's pink plaid blanket where it is spread out on the pile of shavings bales (for bedding.)

Here is this morning's ominous sunrise, a bit washed out because my cell phone insists on overexposing stuff like this.

Two challah loaves (Hanukkah is almost done)
And a cherry pie in a pear tree. (Well with apples in the cherries, actually.)

Grey dawn here, though the NWS promises temperature above freezing and a little sunlight today. For the moment, all is peaceful even if it looks a bit bleak.

Whatever you celebrate, be it Yule, Midwinter, Christmas, or just a day with family and friends or one of peace and quiet: I wish you warmth, happiness, and health in the year to come.

We had the few remaining local family here for dinner yesterday, and have exchanged gifts, cards, and messages with the more scattered siblings. Today will be a day of quiet relaxation, I hope. Time edges ever onward, and I have quite a bit more grey hair today than I did even just a year ago. Even our dog Red is more grey than rufous now.

Know that I hold you all dear in my heart, friends. Be happy and be safe, please.

We've heard a lot of misguided nonsense about the Maya and their calendar over the past year. The end of the "long count" is just a cyclical event after which a new count begins. The calendars familiar to Central American scholars consist of multiple cycles of varying length, each of which simply repeats itself when it runs out. Thus the thirteenth long count began on or about the winter solstice of 2012. (Technically, it's the fourteenth b'akt'un since the first one was "zero," but by convention the repeating long counts are numbered in that way.) Anyway, the world didn't end on December 21. Instead, we just flip the long count back to the beginning and start over, just as we do with January 1 of each year in the common Gregorian calendar.

A similar occasion for our own calendar took place on January 1, 2000, when the collapse of civilization was predicted by some based on the notion that computer software would get confused about dates with the beginning of a new century. This was equally misguided, and very little happened related to that change. Furthermore, the actual 21st century didn't begin until January 1, 2001, since there is no year zero in the Gregorian system.

Recycling calendars is a practice we have picked up here at the farm, not out of miserliness, but because we save wall calendars that have particularly attractive pictures on them. The Gregorian calendar has repeating cycles too, just as the Mayan or Aztec calendars do, but the pattern of repeats is more complicated (at least to my way of thinking.) A little investigation, however, shows that the pattern of weekdays and dates for 2013 matches exactly with 2002, 1991, and 1985, as well as many earlier years. Our collection of favorite old calendars only goes back to about 1984, so those are the three years of greatest interest. Though we did get two new wall calendars this year (one with puppies, one with wolves) we normally use four at various locations in the house. This morning we sorted through the old calendars and pulled out two from 2002. One of those is the Workman Teddy Bear calendar from 2002, and the other is a calendar with photos of sheep breeds from the same year.

Phases of the moon, if indicated, on such recycled calendars are almost never correct. The dates for Easter and Ash Wednesday are usually wrong. Other fixed holidays and civil holidays that are moved to the nearest Monday are normally correct. We use a lunar astronomical calendar for moon phases anyway and disregard the approximations shown on wall calendars, so this is not a big issue. It's fun to revisit favorite calendar photos of years past, and our collection of 30 or 40 some old ones takes up little space on a bookshelf.

Has it really been that long? Yes it has. My mate and I celebrate 30 years together as of this weekend. Not that we're doing anything big. We plan to join some friends who are celebrating their 50th anniversary and go to dinner at an Indian restaurant. We also went out to a relatively new Polish buffet style place tonight (it wasn't bad, but wasn't really impressive either.) I bought us a new mattress that is being delivered next week, and he gave me a teddy bear. That's about it. We tried to plan a real party on our 25th but no one was able to make it, so this time around we're not doing that.

Weather today has been a bit on the peculiar side. We had a very odd display of cloud shapes around 11 am. There was no warning or watch in our county, but the sky looked like a honeycomb of cavities going upward. It's hard to explain, but imagine a uniform overcast that appears to have a definite ceiling. then imagine huge holes in it pointing straight up, looking as if someone had pushed a giant carrot up into the cloud ceiling at regular intervals, making a series of rows of holes that covered about half the sky. There was severe thunderstorm activity to the south of us, but we had no wind and no rain, just this very weird cloud formation. Later someone referred to it as a "mesoscale convection" I think. or something like that. In any case it was the oddest looking and most disturbing cloud distribution I've ever seen in my life.

Now there appear to be thunderstorms headed in our general direction, but it wouldn't be surprising if they miss us, as they often do. It's bone dry here, and we really could use some decent rainfall.

Being at work is easier. As usual, I find we are making the entire holiday dinner for a dozen people and carting it into Chicago. I'm so tired now I'm cross-eyed, and once again I'm thankful that the little family I have left is so small and scattered. These overbearing guilt obligations are just too much to have to deal with. At this point, I'd settle for hot dogs tomorrow.

At least after tomorrow is done it should be pretty clear sailing until Thursday when I depart for FCN. There are things to be done, of course, but where to draw the lines is my own decision and I can drop any of them if necessary.

Gary, of course, has been having a double hell week between all the church choir obligations and trying to get his final project for school done before the end of the month. Then, on top of that, it's his family that incurs all this food responsibility. It's a "tradition" I think I could do without, and it strikes four times a year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and Easter. At last we're done with it until November once we get through tomorrow.

Interesting to note that deaths in his family always seem to cluster right around those holidays, too. The stress and guilt is too much to deal with, I think.

It was hot today. This is the Ides of March, not traditionally a sweltering day in the sun in this part of the world. We got to 77F here with some significant humidity. It's cooling off now, and supposedly we are in for dense fog and possible thunderstorms.

First barbecue of the year, after we went out at lunch time and voted in the nearly pointless Illinois primary. I do usually vote for a handful of Republicans, but they are in local offices in this totally GOP county were there are often no Democratic candidates at all. Fortunately, some of them do a good job at what they are doing (not the sheriff, alas, but the county clerk and the state senator are at least OK and the county board members from our district are in favor of conservation, preserving farmland, controlling development, and keeping property taxes down.) I might not want some of these same people to be in Congress, but locally they are good. Anyway, take a Republican ballot? No, not interested. On the Democratic ballot, there were really no significant choices. One candidate (or none) for each slot. Except for a choice between two for US congresscritter. The incumbent is a Republican and the usual sort of anti-everything jerk who hates women, gays, unions, and the environment but loves big corporations. Alas, he will undoubtedly win. But I want a real candidate to run against him. We actually had a choice between a gray-haired businessman who takes few positions in public but makes a big deal of the fact that he's a Catholic, married, with kids. Sorry, but I can just guess how he would vote on gay marriage, women's rights, or other issues near and dear to me. Fortunately, the other candidate is in his 20s, a geeky information technology type with longish hair and a beard, and has taken public positions in favor of gay marriage, pro-choice, public health insurance, and other issues I support. He gets my vote and I took the Dem ballot specifically to vote for him. Of course he won't get the nomination, but I tried.

Gas prices are going through the roof. In Harvard they went up by 24 cents just today. Oddly enough, one station in Marengo was bucking the trend and went down by five cents. This made for a 41 cent difference in the price of unleaded regular between Marengo and Harvard. The distance between the two towns is only about 12 miles.

Went over my Argos fursuit and conclude that it's as ready as it will be for an appearance Saturday as the library book wolf. Then that evening I have been arm-twisted to sit in with one of Gary's groups for a St. Patrick's Day session at a local restaurant. Their lead violinist is unavailable that evening and they asked for me to play flute (not violin, not up to that) with them. I agreed, but reluctantly. I understand we get dinner for free and the crowd was reasonably polite last year, so I'll survive it.

Like flim flammery. I know, the Woodstock ground hog predicted springlike weather in two weeks, and here it is two weeks and we have sunny days and temperatures well above freezing. All the snow is gone, and replaced by mud.

Drove Gary to his optometrist appointment this afternoon since they would dilate his eyes so he couldn't see to drive home. And they did, and he couldn't, so that was a good thing. He's back to normal now and passed all his tests. Only a slight change to one eye after four years.

Discussion with friends I plan to meet with at FCN led me to check into train schedules and fares to Kalamazoo, which is conveniently close to their farm. To my astonishment, since I haven't looked at Amtrak schedules for some time. There are four trains a day each way between Chicago and Kalamazoo, and the fare is just $22. That's competitive with the price of fuel to drive there. In fact, if the price of fuel goes up this summer as it usually does, the train will be cheaper. I'd have to take Metra from Woodstock to Chicago, then switch stations (just a block or so apart) to get Amtrak. It's quite workable. Timewise it's competitive as well, because though the train ride is slightly longer, I wouldn't be driving and could write or read or whatever (sleep!) on the way. I'd like to go visit them for a weekend, but I hate the driving. This is a good discovery.

And after tomorrow, comes a three day weekend. Yay!