The Hardy Boys and the New Ice Age

The loudest noise in our house is the ink jet, printing letters.
The loudest noise in our neighborhood is the sound of snow falling.

There are no cars going down the street.
Earlier, Mari reports, she saw a city snow plow (you know,
government plow; tax money plow) clear the street,
but right now, it is difficult to see that there even is a street
between our house and the neighbors across the way.

Squadrons of goldfinches, downy woodpeckers, chicadees,
and what I assume are sparrows, attack our hanging bird feeders.
A single oak leaf, caught by the wind, tumbles aimlessly
across our yard, orphaned by relentless snow.

On TV, giddy reporters are celebrating what they say
will be one of the heaviest snowfalls in Minnesota history.
Even though only a foot or two will fall, the wind is stiff,
and the temperature is falling to minus Fahrenheit numbers.

None of this is malicious, but it is relentless. And quiet.

There will be flurries of pointless snowfall measurements
as people rush out with their yardsticks to measure
the drifts. We love to exaggerate our disasters,
demonstrating that we are a hardy, good-humored lot.

Blowing snow, late tonight, or tomorrow, will be an adventure.
We live in a drift area. I guess we all do, now. Blowing snow
into the wind is silly, but sometimes it is the only option.

Mostly, I think about the heater I just replaced downstairs
that keeps the pipes from freezing. It was twenty-five
or thirty years old, as is the main furnace. But I exaggerate
the danger, just to show I am hardy, and good-humored.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy. Those were skills to be learned and practiced. I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop. He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes. He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade. Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore. The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up. I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth. I knew how to do that. Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down. On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back: two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed! Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore. The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil. We farmed, too, of course. All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor. Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. Even when all they wanted to do w

SmokeSound

Search This Blog