Noticed that Nature Brought Ice This Week

No book club in person.  :-(

This post is my version of the Finding Joy in Gratitude effort.

Sunday Feb 16th: Today nature caused book club to move from in person to zoom.  The day started with relative warmth (around 40F) and rain, then the temperature dropped.  Slush, then snow.  There is probably ice out there but I am not going out until tomorrow to check.  And it’s going to be blasted cold for the next week.  Soooo grateful for heat and light.  And while a discussion on zoom is suboptimal, I was very grateful for the zoom option.  But my first attempt at a charcuterie board was cut off at the knees.

Monday, so-called Presidents’ Day:  The driveway was a sheet of ice; ice is part of nature.  I did not fall down, which is a miracle.   The reason that the icy driveway was important was because we were expecting the delivery of our new clothes washer, the old having served us well before going caput.  A new appliance is not part of nature, but not having to go to a creek in 16F weather to wash the clothes makes one grateful for the chance to avoid that interaction with nature.  Appliance installed; backlog of laundry being washed.

There was a rally in town, but I did not go.

Tuesday: I was confronted again by ice.  Our front walkway up to the mailbox has some pretty nasty icy patches.  We have run out of sidewalk salt.  The good thing about this bitter cold weather is, as the weather app tells me:  “Risk of mosquito activity is low.”

Wednesday:  nature?  What is nature?

Thursday: I walked for 1.5 miles on the treadmill to try to reduce my anger and anxiety.  I am counting pumping blood and moving muscles as part of nature.  Because it is.

Friday:  I will have to shovel the front walk - there is about one inch of snow on there.  I forgot to buy sidewalk salt when I was at the grocery store. 

Door-knocking partner cropped out for privacy reasons.
Look, there is a Tardis behind us.
Maybe we could go to a different time-frame.

Saturday: The temperature was above freezing as we went door knocking to try to find a candidate for town council.  Nobody volunteered to run.

Smoky the Bear exhorts us to resist.
Yeah, we're trying.

Sunday:  Temps slightly above freezing during the Demonstration for Democracy in town.  But still cold enough that when I was holding the camera to livestream (for our grassroots groups), I needed my gloves on.  I had forgotten my hat, but I was grateful that it was just warm enough that my ears did not get cold.  (several photos of this event at the end of this post)

Monday: The snow is melting.  It’s way above freezing today.  The walk out to the mailbox (to mail an item related to my aunt’s estate) was for once not a frigid and unpleasant expedition.

Aaand then I lost track of writing it all down.  But I got through the last week of February.  And for that I am thankful.

Demonstration for Democracy on Feb 23, 2025