What a tiring week it was. We had a little snow and a lot of cold and wind. Wednesday there was a hazardous wind warning and I biked home from work in sustained winds of 30 mph/48 kph with higher wind gusts. The highest gust recorded happened about the time I arrived home and clocked in at 53 mph/85 kph! Thankfully the wind was mostly from the north-west and my ride home takes me mostly south. So I kind of got an extra boost, but also an occasional gust from the side that would push me over a few feet—grateful that this did not happen in high traffic places!

With wind chills some mornings that dipped a little below 0F/-17C and actual “high” temperatures that hovered in the neighborhood of 16F/-9C, it was a lot to cope with. When Thursday evening sangha came around James and I were too tired to bundle up for our 6 minute bike ride. So we used the Plum Village app to have our own sangha at home. Felt much more rested by Saturday with the sunshine and a big warm up to 52F/11C! The warmth will not last. By Wednesday the forecast high is 13F/ 10.5C. The temperature swings are ridiculous!

Friday my neighbor on the south side made some changes to her yard that are going to potentially have some big effects on the climate of my garden. She had an arborist out who cut down the four mostly dead lilacs that shade the garden along the fence. I have been wishing the death of the lilacs for years, and this last wet spring/summer brought them to the edge. She probably could have done a hard prune and they would have come back just fine, but given that I am allergic to them, I am not sad to see them gone.

However, I now have to toss out the perennial planting plan I’ve been working on for this area for spring. The lupines, columbine, and shade prairie grass seeds I have stratifying in pots out in the cold, will have to go elsewhere, assuming come spring, she’s not going to plant any giant trees or shrubs that will shade the area again. I’m thinking she won’t, since she also had some large shrubs next to her back door cut down and an eight-foot pine tree on the other edge of her yard removed. Now her backyard is a big, flat sunny expanse. Perhaps she’ll plant flowers and vegetables?

James was home on Friday while all this was going on and heard noises at the front of our house. He looked out to see the arborist in Melody Silver Maple! He went out and asked the guy WTF he was doing in our tree. The guy made all sorts of excuses, but what it amounted to was he was cutting one large dying branch and a few smaller ones that partially went over the fence line. We knew these branches were dying and we were planning to have someone out in the spring, but this guy took it upon himself to lop off the branches because fence line. It’s one thing if they were over the neighbor’s house and posed a danger to her property, but they were not. They were over her weedy front yard lawn. But instead of just cutting the branches back to the fence line, he climbed into the tree on our property without asking permission.

James was furious, and when he called to tell me I was too. But, after talking to the arborist and realizing he actually did know what he was doing, and then requesting he leave a one-foot length of the bigger dying branch on the tree with the idea of putting a platform for critters to build a nest up there or perhaps a bat house, he allowed the guy to prune the tree. So in the end, our neighbor inadvertently saved us some cash because now we don’t have to pay an arborist to come out and prune the tree in the spring. Thanks neighbor! It just would have been so much nicer if the man had come over and talked to James first.

In spite of how tiring the week was, there were many moments of joy! My Tuesday morning bike commute was a very cold wind chill morning but it was also lightly snowing. I recently got a new bike headlight that has a brighter, wider beam and the light reflecting on the falling snow made it look like I was riding through a shower of glitter. So much sparkling delight!

Another morning I saw a passenger on a bus wearing a Santa hat. He also had a short scruffy beard. Maybe he was Santa?

Biking home from work Wednesday evening, the waxing crescent moon in the fading blue twilight sky looked incredibly bright but yet fragile.

In the last five or six years robins have begun overwintering here. Not many, I’d never see more than a couple. During last year’s very warm winter I saw perhaps six or so hanging out along my commute route. This year there is an area along my route where there is a flock of perhaps two dozen robins! I was astonished to see them in a flock since they are such territorial birds. A bit of research revealed that in winter robins form nomadic flocks that can consist of hundreds to thousands of birds! My two dozen robins are small potatoes, but there must be plenty of food in the area to keep them gathered there. It’s nice to see them on my way home and hear them singing.

Today, another day well above freezing, the juncos emptied the deck water dish twice from their vigorous bathing. And then they spent time eating seeds from the giant hyssop and amaranth I left standing in the garden. Their joy was my joy as I stood watching them from the window.

I hope you have been finding joy!

Reading

• Book: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. A book I meant to read back in 2003 when it first came out but never got to it. And then I heard a podcast recently on which the host and guest were raving about it. James suggested we have a book club of two. So I borrowed a copy from the library and he added it to his e-reader. I did not like the book much. The writing was fine but I didn’t care about the story and finding the maker of the mysterious movie clips that keep showing up on the internet. But I finished it because I thought James was also reading it. But he stalled out on it pretty early on and told me only after I was almost at the end of the book with only 30 pages left to read. Well I wasn’t going to stop at that point. Now I am making James finish it because he has to suffer through it too.
• Article: Five Kinds of Survival Gardens by Sharon Astyk. I like Astyk. I follow her on Facebook where she posts about gardening and the state of the world, and I’ve read one of her books about preparing for disasters and living in a post-carbon world. This article is on five types of survival gardens you might want to consider depending on your circumstances. They range from growing food that is too expensive to buy at the store, to a medicinal garden, to flat out community survival. Good things to think about.
• Article: “Make the beans your bitch”–how to join the leguminati, plus five great recipes. Leguminati! Hahaha! It’s a short piece about Steve Sando of the California-based bean company, Rancho Gordo. I checked out their website to see what sort of seeds they sell and was appalled that a packet of seeds cost $6 – $7. But then I realized they aren’t selling seed packets but one-pound (or more) bags of beans to eat. Ha! In addition to the recipes in the article, the Rancho Gordo website has even more recipes and also all sorts of other things, including “bean” earrings that are sadly sold out.

Listening

• Podcast: On Being: Joan Baez: “This Gift of a Voice” I used to frequently listen to Krista Tippett’s show On Being on public radio Sunday mornings, but she ended the show a few years ago. Turns out she continued the show as a podcast. This interview with Joan Baez took place in October. Baez, 83, published a book of poetry this year, When you see my mother, ask her to dance.
• Podcast: Between the Covers: Dionne Brand: Salvage: Readings from the Wreck. I have this book on my TBR and am looking forward to reading it. After hearing the interview, my anticipation sykrocketed.

Watching

• Movie: Lee (2023). A biopic starring Kate Winslet as photojournalist Lee Miller. Fantastic movie.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

Of the many delicious this James made this week, sweet and sour chickpeas and green beans was one of my favs, not only because it was delicious, but also because I grew the green beans in the garden. James also made some peanut butter and chocolate donuts.