This week in Noticing Nature

Okay, it’s actually 10 days of observations.

This is my entry for The F.I.G. Collective this week.

Thursday: as I lay awake at 3 AM, ruminating about my upcoming attempt, later that day, to speak to the Senator’s aide in person, I heard the freezing rain falling on the roof.  

Friday: It was getting dark as I went out to get the mail.  I was still in time to see the fading sunset, peach and blue and gray, and also an early star/planet.  I turned around and saw the half-moon behind the fractal bare branches of our oak tree.  So beautiful.

Saturday:  Some of the fractal bare branches are down on our yard.  Still.  I’m not going out to pick them up until spring.

Sunday:  It was snowing (just flurries) this morning when I set off for church.  By the time we were done with Souperbowl + Bakesale, it was still flurrying but nothing was sticking to the roadway.  Which made the trip home okay.

Monday:  We have an oak tree that doesn’t drop all its leaves in the fall – they stay on the tree, shriveled up.  Today I noticed that in the breeze they make a sort of clattering sound.  Like dry bones getting ready to come to life.  However, I did not prophesy to the dry leaves.

Tuesday:  When I pulled the car out of the garage to go to the store to pick up meds for the Common Household Husband, I particularly noticed the frozen ground where I have to step out of the car to close the garage door.  It’s a spot that would be muddy if the temperature is above freezing.  I appreciated the firm ground to walk on.

And no, we do not have an automated garage door closing mechanism.  It’s people power all the way.  When it becomes impossible for me to open and close the garage door, it’s time to move.

Wednesday:  There was lots of rain today.

Thursday:  As I headed outdoors to meet friends, it was flurrying. The snow on the ground looked like little pellets.  But probably not big and threatening enough to be graupel.

Friday:  Valentine’s Day.  It’s 23 degrees F; feels like 15 with the windchill.  I am heading out soon to be a gadfly outside my US Senator’s office.  He and Presidents M & P are ruining the future.

A Valentine for the Senator.
(not my sign)

Saturday:  We woke up to a surprise snowstorm.  I like to think that this is appropriate - it is supposed to snow in February.  It will likely turn to gobs of rain later, which must be why there is a flood watch.  Nature is fun to observe, eh?

Here are three times on this blog when the weather was more challenging than today, and for that we are thankful:

A Prayer

https://commonhousehold.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-lords-prayer-for-snowy-day.html

Back when we used to get a print newspaper:

https://commonhousehold.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-winter-of-my-discontent.html

Snow Physics

https://commonhousehold.blogspot.com/2011/02/more-snow-physics.html

Poetry Writing Workshop for a Snowy Day

It's pretty, as long as you don't
have to go out in it.
Photo from 2011.

How to write an “imagist” poem, after William Carlos Williams, and after a snowstorm that you shouldn’t have been driving in.

The original –

This Is Just to Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

The Common Household Line-by-line tutorial

First stanza

1. “I have” + verb which connotes consumption, such as “eaten”, “used up”, “smashed”, “drove”

2.  Insert the delectable foodstuff or other item which you ate/used but which everyone else wanted to consume

3.  “That were/was in”

4. Location of said delectable

Second stanza

5, 6, 7. “And which”

             “You were probably”

             “saving”

8. “for “ insert use for which delectable had been intended

Final stanza

9.  Blithely ask for forgiveness

10. State how much you enjoyed said item that you deprived everyone else of

11. “So “ + adjective describing the delectable item

12. “And so” + a different adjective describing the delectable item

Final steps

Finally, think of a nonchalant or understated sort of title for your poem.

Do not include any punctuation.  I would say punctuation is so twentieth-century pre-texting era, but Wm. C. Wms wrote his poem in the 20th Century so there

Here is my poem, after enduring a 1 ½ hour drive home (2 hours if you count that I had to detour to a local mall because the road was closed, and I got a sub-par lunch there) from church choir rehearsal in a snowstorm, a drive which usually takes 15 minutes. 

Cutting the Cheese

by Common Household Mom

I have eaten

the New Zealand sharp cheddar cheese

that was in

the tupperware on the second shelf of the fridge

and which

you were probably

saving

for your high-protein low-carb breakfast

Forgive me

it was delectable

so buttery

and so stress-reducing after the most harrowing drive home on the suburban streets woefully unprepared for the snow (as was I)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Here are two versions written by Older Daughter, way back in 2005, when she was a teenager.

Variations on the Theme

Yesterday, I broke the piano that you had been saving to teach with.

I’m sorry, but I was practicing karate.

I’d regret it, but it was the perfect target.

I’m sorry, but I burned the school yesterday.

I didn’t know that you were using it.

And besides, I’m a firefighter, and there was nothing else to do.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

But I think Older Daughter was actually riffing on this:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

Kenneth Koch

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do

and its wooden beams were so inviting.

 

We laughed at the hollyhocks together

and then I sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me.  I simply do not know what I am doing.

 

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.

The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

 

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me.  I was clumsy, and

I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Also, I had a big mug of hot chocolate, with dark chocolate.

I feel a bit better now.  Yes, yes, I am indeed grateful that I didn’t get in a wreck or sustain any injury.  (My feet were wet and cold, though.)  My rage is contained, and I am home and back to using punctuation.

Einstein was also perturbed by snow (2019).

Robert Frosty Gingerbread

Two chocolate roads diverged in a sugary wood,

And sorry I could not eat both

And still fit in my Santa suit, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

to snowmen walking through the undergrowth…..

The finished product, which we are calling
"Two Roads Diverged on a Snowy Evening"

We’ve been talking about it for weeks.  Today we made it happen.  It was the perfect day for it, too, starting out with an ice storm that prevented us from leaving the house.  (If you actually want to see some details, you will have to click to embiggen.)

Friday afternoon, Son and Younger Daughter went to the grocery store to fetch the final ingredients for our gingerbread creation: giant Hershey bars, nonpareils, gummy bears, confectioner’s sugar, pretzels, and Hanukkah gelt. 

Ingredients

Then this morning, with the outside world covered with a quarter inch of ice, we set to baking.  YD designed a pattern for gingerbread deciduous trees.  She assigned her brother to make a pattern for holly bushes.  “I've brought you a shrubbery!” Son declared.

Half of a deciduous tree.  We had to do a lot of
shaving with that scalpel-like thingy.

We were really excited that the deciduous tree actually
stood up, the way it was supposed to!

 

pine trees and ducks in the making

patterns for sleigh and shrubbery

Son used some engineering skills to get my scanner to work so we could have properly scaled patterns for Santa’s sleigh, reindeer, snowmen, and rabbits.

The engineer at work

We baked ducks, rabbits, reindeer, and more. 

Next, they mapped out the scene.  Santa’s sleigh would be traveling on paved road, represented by a “cookies n crème” Hershey bar, and then he would encounter a fork in the road.  The Road Less Traveled By is made of nonpareils and the road the common public take is made of Hershey paving bricks.

I think the "cookies n cream" bar looks rather like asphalt.

Then, the assembling of the trees to make a “Woods on a Snowy Evening”.  Younger Daughter insisted on making some deciduous trees, although pine trees are easier.   The holly bushes are my favorite – she took the gingerbread shrubbery, covered it with gobs of green icing, and then dipped it in holly-leaf-and-berry decorative candies.

A gingerbread forest

Holly bush!

My job was to decorate some of the smaller pieces – put eyes on the reindeer, and make our Santa actually look somewhat like Santa.  My skills here are not stellar – Santa looks sort of like an alien.  And I completely neglected to paint the snowmen white.  Oh, well.  I did give them orange-colored (carrot) noses.

Santa from another galaxy

The snowmen are taking
The Road More Travelled. It's hard
to see the snowmen because they
are the same color as the chocolate
road they tread.

Finally, it was time to slather Royal Icing all over everything to glue stuff down.

This is the lake mentioned in the poem.
There are a few waterfowl, and there is a gummy bear
doing some ice fishing with a pretzel as a fishing pole.
Those other things are supposed to be rabbits.

 

This is only part of the mess we made.
We used three tables for this endeavor.

An aerial view of our creation

The scene involves Santa and his sleigh in the woods on a snowy evening, arriving at a fork in the road as he is on his way to deliver gifts.  We conjectured that perhaps this Santa is Jewish because he is delivering Hanukkah gelt.  He decides to take the road less traveled (or maybe Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has decided for him).  The other road is more traveled because a lot of snowmen are on it.   This is our homage to Robert Frost's famous poems.

To make this with my children was joy itself.  I may have miles to go before I can get a good night's sleep, but making this gingerbread creation has made all the difference.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.  

His house is in the village though;  

He will not see me stopping here  

To watch his woods fill up with snow.  

My little horse must think it queer  

To stop without a farmhouse near  

Between the woods and frozen lake  

The darkest evening of the year.  

He gives his harness bells a shake  

To ask if there is some mistake.  

The only other sound’s the sweep  

Of easy wind and downy flake.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  

But I have promises to keep,  

And miles to go before I sleep,  

And miles to go before I sleep.

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.