A Visitor

I was about to step into the shower the other day when the Photo Fairy tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, you-who-always-has-a-camera-in-his-pocket, but I notice that you’re not wearing any, uh, pockets right now...” (she giggled.) “I thought you might want to look toward the bathroom window. There’s light there that you might like, and a pretty scene. I just thought I’d let you know...”

And then she was gone. The Photo Fairy vanished. Damn, she was pretty, too.

I found my pants, and my camera. I took the picture the fairy had shown me, then went on with my shower. I had a stupid, love-struck smile on my face.

I hope that fairy comes back soon. What a vision she was!

Boutique?

I once heard an agribusiness expert sarcastically refer to the kind of place where Leah and I live as a “boutique farm.” Others sometimes call acreage like ours a “hobby farm.” And, while I must admit that we don’t earn a living off our land, we do have quite a peaceful life here.

We have good, healthy food from last summer’s garden in our pantry, and our chickens give us eggs that we can offer up for breakfast. I humbly invite the professional cynics to come out for a meal and sit a while in our small, chemical-free pasture...maybe give their preconceptions a rest.

The goat Pumpkin welcomes all visitors.

Flirt

There are nice girls and there are naughty girls. Hazel is a bit of a tease, so I guess one would have to conclude that her ways tend toward the naughty.

Some men around here even go so far as to say that Hazel is a witch. Certainly she’s got me under some kind of spell. I think she might even be stalking me.

I look out the doors of our dining room these days and Hazel is out there, and she’s a sight to behold. It’s January -- the middle of winter, fer gawd’s sake -- yet Hazel is outside, dressed in the sexy, flirtatious colors of spring.

Yes, it’ true that our temps have been in the 50’s the past few days, unseasonably mild, and if I let my guard down, Hazel will tempt me to come out and romp around in the yard with her. But I’m a logical fellow and I know that, as quick as you can say “frostbite,” the weather can change, and temperatures more appropriate for winter season will return.

What will Hazel do if and when it gets cold again? Why she’ll freeze her bloomers off, that’s fer sure.

Resolution

A friend told me yesterday that she’s made a New Year’s promise to herself not to fret about things she can’t change, and her resolution sounded like something I should take to heart. I’ve been in a funk the past week or two about the dark and dreary and wet Seattle winter weather...and of all the things that we can’t change in life, well, the weather has to be close to #1 on the list, yes?

To be honest, the weather where I live isn’t all that bad. I was talking to my Mom on the phone last night and she told me it was something like 6 degrees (F) in Ohio yesterday, while it was around 40 here. As tiresome as it is to experience day after day of rain in the wet Pacific Northwest, bone-chilling cold, to me at least, would be way worse.

The thing about the weather is that, somewhere, somebody’s got it better, somebody's got it worse than you do.

I need to hope that, come August 15th, 2011, perhaps from 1-2 PM, the sun will come out here and Seattle will have it's rightful one hour of sunny, perfect weather. If it rains that day too, well, as my friend would point out, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.

No Nap

When we last met here in the Seeing Small clubhouse, I was telling you that several people I know had gone off to cool, adventurous-sounding places (Baja, for example) for the New Year’s weekend, but that Leah and I were feeling kind of lazy and decided we’d stay home, close to the wood stove. My Mom had been here visiting Christmas week and I’d been on the go-go-go entertaining her. The weather’s been clear and chilly out. A nap near the warm fire sounded good.

Then the phone rang. A photographer friend wondered whether I wanted to do a day trip out to the Washington Coast.

I went.

Our day was as varied as the landscape we passed through. I shot panoramas of frosty trees in the cool, shaded lowlands. Later we photographed mist on beautiful Lake Crescent. And we ended our day with a hike to Second Beach, where we watched the sun set into the Pacific. It was a fine day to be out and about.

Maybe I’ll nap next weekend.