Water Vapor

A mist, I would say, is different from light rain. It's all about suspension. I've been observing water closely, the last couple of weeks, because there's been so much. Just when I think I'm bored with it, it surprises me. There was a ground fog, the sun came up in a clear sky, and all of the fog trailed off like smoke. I made a note to pray for fog, so I could watch it dissipate. The Tom TV show is just three hours a day. He hits us at eight with hog futures and a video of the fog dissipating, then at noon, with breaking news about sublimation at some of the higher passes, then a human interest story at eight, involving a pet. Add it to your package. In an attempt to not come off as a morel jerk, cooked them with parsnips, with turnips, with all of the root vegetables. Morels cooked in butter on a sweet potato is a revelation. Because I'd been reading about Mandelbrot I was struck by a passage in Thoreau: "... that each little pebble that had protected the sand made the summit of a sort of basaltic column of sand, --- a phenomenon which looks like it might be repeated on a larger scale in nature." Fractals. They're everywhere. A dreary day, threatening more rain, and quite cool. In the forties last night and again tonight, and the leaves are turned inside out. A freshening wind in the afternoon. Blossoms on the blackberry to the south of the house. I curl up and read for eight hours. Great day for it, a stadium blanket and a mug of tea, I unplug the phone and turn off the breaker for the fridge. Mere quiet, of course, because there is the sound of snow falling off branches, or a single crow, looking for a hand-out, or the white noise of gentle rain on the roof, some sound that is no longer silence. You deal with that, sometimes I use earplugs. I'd turned the compost pile and added some rank kitchen trimmings, stove ashes, and covered it with green-stuff I'd cut with the sling-blade on the path to the outhouse. I knew some critter would dig it up, and about 3 in the morning there's a huge uproar, the bob-cat and two feral dogs. It would be cruel and difficult to film this, and I usually break it up with my sling-shot and a couple of marbles. Since I discovered the decorator marbles at Big Lots, incredibly cheap, now, I only use marbles, and occasionally ball bearings, to make my point. Imagine, I used to pick up rocks. I still do, of course, rocks interest me, certain plants I see on the roadside, the colors ponds assume. Was there ever a bit of frost that revealed so much. I was going to the corner store to get a stick of gum.