Cold Snap

Woke up and the power was off, the house was very cold, the leaves on the front porch covered with hoar-frost. Too cold too soon. I need to bring in a couple of ricks of firewood. Supposed to be even colder tonight, then a bit warmer. The good news is that the snakes will be gone and I'll be able to get under the house. It's dismal outside, gray and cold, with a stiff breeze; the leaves are whipping off the trees, no squirrels, no birds. The green-briar is still vibrant, those hard waxy leaves like holly or mistletoe, but everything else is turning toward the winter drab. I can see the other side of the hollow quite clearly now, a golden brown wash. I watched a nice young buck deer, beautiful six-point rack, and a doe I believe to be his sister, for most of the day, they napped about thirty feet away. They live mostly in the five or so acres framed by the driveway and my house. They wander out, to feed, but they bed down close by. They're very safe there, and they know it; I've had a Mom and one or two fawns every year that I've been here. Enough that I can pick out the sound of a deer walking carefully among all the extraneous noise. It takes several hours with a good hot fire to chase the chill. TR and I talked on the phone about the opera. I knew he'd be bored silly at the museum, by himself, a miserable day, no guests, so we talked at length. I napped at some point and woke up with the moon squarely behind the little stained glass window high in the west wall, and the house was quite warm. Lovely. The soup is very good and I made a fresh pone of corn bread that's close to my idea of perfection. Simple pleasures. TR and I agree that there needs to be the character of me, upstage, just a reading lamp, face not visible, reading paragraphs that are seasonal in nature. We seem to have arrived at this independently, which is both surprising and not surprising. I spend a good part of the day reading some paragraphs out loud, with rain drips and leaves blowing about. The pieces sounded good, an isolated voice, the broken rhythms. I think we're on to something. I had forgotten the sight of a waxing moon through stick trees, and tonight it plays with my heart. It's so beautiful. Even a couple of stars, rare along the Ohio. I was depressed this morning, nothing was working, I was reading Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable with a headlamp and I couldn't brew my morning double espresso, and the house was cold. By the end of the day I'm warm, the soup is great, and I'm eating a thin slice of cold butter on every mouth full of corn bread, hot from the oven. It doesn't get any better than this.