December 2008
I’m afraid time is at a premium this year, so I’m turning to mass production. There’s nothing startling to report, but life is good.
Winter was what one would expect in the North Country. The highlight/lowlight of January was a 3-day power outage--long enough to fill my cellar with 3 feet of water. My non-submersible water pump survived submersion, as did the sump pump. Birds at the feeders included ever-present chickadees, downy and hairy woodpeckers, pine siskins, a few redpolls, screaming blue jays, evening grosbeaks (though not in numbers I used to have) and, as a treat, pine grosbeaks. There was enough snow to make me kneel to stick my head down into the garbage can where I store birdseed, to fill the scoop. That’s my measure of “yes, we had plenty of snow.”
An appealing 15” beagle named Uno 
won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, vindicating rabbit hunters everywhere and making me smile.
Silver Lake’s ice was 18” thick in February.
March was especially unkind, -26 at one point. I earned bragging rights that month: I got my car stuck in snow perpendicularly across my driveway. The sides of the driveway were concrete-hard plowed banks 3’ high, and I managed to have both front and back bumpers jammed against them. I was forced to do what I truly hate: ask for help. My friends the Brousseau brothers picked up my Civic, turning it so it no longer looked like a cruel joke. I live in a place where friends never hesitate to answer a call for help.
An Easter trip to my mother’s in Rhode Island 
provided me with the thrill of walking on bare ground as well as a visit with my niece Jenica and her husband Drew. I brought home a big fat goldfish, the bully of the RI fish community. He’s now the sole inhabitant of the tank on my desk at work—we look to each other for inspiration from time to time.
The ice went out of the lake on April 23rd-- about average. Life proceeded apace, with black flies and hummingbirds arriving at the same time in early May. The lake community kept close track of a young loon as it spent the summer swimming between its parents, learning how to be a loon. Because the female adult was banded, we learned that she is 6 years old and came from a neighboring lake. We had two pairs of very vocal adult loons on the lake this year.
I revisited my Midwestern roots in July, spending time in rural Wisconsin with friends from elementary/junior/senior high school. There were 18 of us staying together. A ride on the Duck in the Dells, 
a guided nature walk (plenty of sand hill cranes) and being introduced live on NPR’s Whad’ya Know? while being Betsy Rogers again.
My sister took her annual summer trip from Italy and we spent two weeks with my mother in Rhode Island: great beach days
, perfect ocean, early morning dog walks, and delicious seafood. We learned more than enough about jellyfish—at one point the Atlantic was filled with millions (yes, millions) of tiny jellyfish, the size of a contact lens. As Jenica said, it was like swimming in a sea of ice cubes: in the water they’re hard. Washed up on the beach, exposed to air, they turn gooey and disgusting. Really—REALLY not a pleasant nautical experience.
The cat
demonstrated her hunting prowess throughout the summer. No ordinary cat, she slaughtered a dozen pygmy shrews and two kangaroo mice. The dogs, also special, roused a resting skunk under the house. The smell wafted into the living room, but only altered their fine perfume for a few days. Vinegar is vaguely effective as an odor eater.
I’m happy, healthy and truly enjoy where I live. I’m still pleased to be a librarian. I’ve got 10 cords of wood stacked and ready, new snow tires, down jacket, new boots, birdfeeders hung and full, driveway plowed—I’m ready for whatever winter brings. First, though, I’m off to Rhode Island for a chance to walk on bare ground at Christmas.
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