Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)
- Weather
High temperatures ranged from 30°F to 41.4°F, lows from 12.9°F to 30°F. The coming week will be colder.
We had about 8 inches of snow overnight on 9th, becoming rain on the 10th. Another 3-4 inches of snow fell on the night of the 12th, again followed by rain the next day. We had blizzard-like no-visibility snow squalls off and on for about an hour on Sunday afternoon, for which we received a squealing phone alert an hour beforehand. The new inch or so of snow that fell today dusted the seedheads, tree and shrub branches, and evergreen leaves and needles, which looked dreamy, as well as the sheets of ice that have formed in the road, which is treacherous.
- Beginnings
We took our first snowshoeing walk/hike on a local trail Monday, and the snow was perfect, just the right depth and fluffy.
I saw my first American tree sparrow on Saturday in the yard and caught its call on Merlin the next day.
- Flora, Fauna, Fungi
- Wandering
See above, Beginnings, for the snowshoe walk photos. Some other things seen while taking walks this week:
- Curiosity & Discoveries
New word learned: Someone commented on a lichen photo (boreal oakmoss, Evernia mesomorpha) that I’d added to iNaturalist and used this word: soredia (soralia), which is “a vegetative means of propagation for lichens. Both fungus and alga are intertwined into a granule-like mass that occurs on top of the cortex and on the margins. Some lichens have structures called soralia that produce soredia.” (source for text and for image below: https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/glossary.shtml)
Webinars: Attended the virtual birding webinar again this Monday (it’s all winter, every other week, through Maine Audubon). Fun especially to see the birds at a wildlife rescue in Czechia. The first photo shows the relative sizes of hairy woodpecker, European starling, and blue jay at the Cornell NY feeder.
And I had another Botany in a Winter webinar on Wednesday evening, which was a lot of review of Week One plus we looked at all the New England genera in the Magnoliid family. On to monocots next week!
- Creating
I worked in my new upstairs office on Wednesday for 5 hours, mostly envisioning and then fleshing out this new blog motif. It involved a lot of scribbling random words down on paper as they popped into my head, scrolling through digital files of quotes and odds & ends I save because they resonate, searching the web for other people’s weekly blog themes and topics (not as helpful as you might think), staring at the walls and out the window, and procrastinating/unfocusing by working on updating my passwords list instead for an hour.
- Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house)
Body/Mind: I took two Covid rapid tests, Sat. morning and Sun. morning, because I wasn’t feeling tiptop on Fri/Sat (felt better Sunday); both negative. Worked out three times (3 hours) this week and took walks or snowshoed on Monday, Wed., Thurs., and Sunday. I lay around quite a lot this week, watching football playoff games on the weekend, reading a book and playing on the phone other evenings. It was a relatively low FitBit step week.
As mentioned above, I enjoyed another Botany in a Winter Zoom class on Wednesday, which wasn’t too taxing (though it was taxonomic!) as it was mostly review; we finally got into and through the magnoliids and we’re heading for monocots next week.
Cat: I cleaned out the cat’s litter box (put all new litter in) on Thursday.
Yard: More snow-blowing of driveway on Wed. and Sat. for my husband.
Hobbies: Husband repaired the platform straps on a pair of gifted snowshoes that he can alternate with his old-fashioned pair, depending on the trail.
- Nesting
Maintenance: I cleaned out the microwave on Monday, which desperately need it. Also cleaned the inside of the family room windows, the better to bird-watch, on Tuesday. I updated my passwords list on Wednesday.
Supplies: I ordered five boxes of tea (3 Rishi chamomile medley and 2 Rishi jasmine green) from iHerb on Tuesday and they arrived on Friday! Made changes to Chewy order due on Monday and made several changes to Amazon Subscribe & Save due on the 22nd. Picked up a gallon spring water for emergency use, trying to gradually create a rotating stash of it. A friend picked up some grocery items for us at two stores on Friday and Saturday.
Food: Husband made sourdough bread over two days (four short baguettes, two of which he gave away). I made a tried-and-true minestrone soup on Tuesday (added a summer squash to it, and I don’t add the Parmesan), which we had for a few dinners with sourdough bread. We ordered takeout from a local Chinese place on Saturday which will carry us well into next week.
- Sleeping & Dreaming
I slept an average of 7 hours and 49 mins per night this week, with an average sleep score of 87.5 (highest score was 93 on Sat night, lowest was 85 on Tues, Wed, and Friday). Again, lots of dreams, including a very vivid one Friday morning that included the cat covered in a hard shell of litter, a landscape/garden abloom in swaths of purple grasses and lavender blooming plants that had been a long time taking hold and which looked amazing, some kind of pre-listing realty event with multiple realtors (all recovering addicts) in a multi-level house with a deck that had two doors onto it and me continually yelling Don’t let the cat out!
- Reading & Ideas
I finished reading The Push (2021) by Ashley Audrain this week. Super creepy psychological/domestic drama about a woman’s life as a daughter, wife, and mother; she comes from a lineage of women who were not good mothers and that causes her to doubt her own capabilities and suitability for motherhood (as well as her own eyes and intuition concerning her daughter). It was well-written and I enjoyed it.
I’ll include this short essay in an upcoming Tuesday Links post but it’s so nice I wanted to mention it here too: The power of beauty – by Rosecrans Baldwin. Read it.
I read this short story by Rebecca Makkai in The New Yorker (it was published in May 2023) on Saturday and it’s sticking with me, like all of her writing does: “The Plaza,” by Rebecca Makkai | The New Yorker
This handy piece, which I came across on Thursday, is now saved for when I need it: how to reheat so many things – by Julia Turshen
Other things I read:
- Connections & Community
A friend thoughtfully offered to pick up grocery items for us from one store on Friday and another store on Saturday, both of which are about 30 mins away, so it saved us time and a drive.
A friend stopped by on Wed. to pick up a loaf of the sourdough bread my husband made. We walked to friends’ that afternoon to drop off another loaf for them and chat for a few minutes. I ordered food on Wed. (for delivery next Friday) from Spoonful of Comfort for a friend in northern Vermont recovering from a bad accident (and now able to eat more than liquified food). A friend had an important PET scan on Wed.; I checked in but they hadn’t received results yet. My sister had an appointment with a new rheumatologist on Thursday and we checked in about it on Friday morning by phone for a half-hour and then I did some research on her labs.
On Thursday, I pre-ordered a lightning bolt necklace from Boho Betty (UK), a fundraiser Nicky and Alex Newman organised (before her death) to benefit Black Women Rising, a UK cancer support project that offers “help, information, and practical advice for people of colour who have been diagnosed with cancer.”
We received a very thoughtful and unexpected notecard this week from a fundraiser at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm (in Wells, Maine) thanking us for our 10 years of membership. (I think it’s actually more but maybe there was a year or two when we lapsed.) We love to visit and we love their work in estuarine research and stewardship.
- Endings
The Halloween pumpkin came to a sort of end (and maybe a beginning, as critter food and compost) this week. It’s been in the garage since the Christmas wreath took over outside decor duties in early December and recently I had noticed that it made a sort of deflating movement when I lightly touched it, so it was scooped up in a snow shovel this week and carried out into the snowy backyard, where it promptly plopped off the shovel and was dragged to the back of the property, spilling its guts and seeds as it went.
I finished up the special Christmas-colours version of Captain Crunch cereal this week. I rarely eat cereal but it appealed to me when I saw it in the grocery store in December. I enjoyed it!
- All This Useless Beauty
I just loved this image, in Jo Thompson’s 1/13/24 “The Gardening Mind” newsletter:
