I love a passage in Arnold Lobel's book Owl at Home that features Owl contentedly enjoying his pea soup and toast until winter comes rattling his door. The demented Owl invites winter inside his home and destruction follows. After becoming a famous author, Lobel admitted that his characters could be described as neurotic but that Owl in particular was "downright psychotic".
David and I have experienced a couple of winters in Badboulder that align us with Owl. We didn't issue an invitation to winter, it just blasted its way inside. We weren't adequately prepared for the invasion.
December 2010 brought us a storm that tested our efforts to keep winter outside our house. We're winning this year thanks to our pellet stove, insulation and solar gain. The antique cook stove helps in that we burn our scrap construction lumber and an accumulation of chaparral roots. Winter's beauty can be more truly appreciated when one is cozily watching from a window.
David ,the cold-hardy photographer, went wild with the camera this storm. Badboulder's snowy pictures not only capture the moment but will soothe body and soul next summer when spontaneous combustion threatens.
Day in and day out, our winters in Badboulder are much like Owl's peaceful existence. The nights range from cool to cold but the sun's warmth brings glorious days. We just sit around eating pea soup and toast.
I can start my landscaping projects in knitted hat, layered sweater and jacket, gloves and scarf. In an hour or so the boulders are strewn with discarded clothing and I work in a long sleeved cotton shirt. David strips to short sleeved tees during winter midday while working outdoors.
Two or three times each winter a true storm, such as we are currently experiencing, rages through Yarnell: wind, rain, hail, sleet and snow flood our washes and ice the roads. Winter's fury arrived December 29 and the resulting snow still graces our boulders and pathways.
Time to pour in the pellets and load the cook stove. Hope you enjoy these majestic pictures from the warmth of your own home.
FROM THE KNOTHOLE: Hello, hi, it's me, up here, and I've got the master control. You know, the remote for the TV and the Blu-ray. Maybe it's just me, but I think Robert Fulghum had it all wrong. I didn't learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten. Heck, I didn't even go to kindergarten. And look how I turned out. If you are like me, a cosmopolitan, suave dude from the last century, you learned it all at the movies, especially the drive-ins. But, that is another story. Why, this past week, and this is serious, I learned about death. The movie was Shadowlands, with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, in a true story from the life of C. S. Lewis. In this movie, we try to answer the question: Why love if losing hurts so much? When his wife dies, Lewis tells us that twice that night he was given the choice, first as a boy, and then as a man. The boy chose safety; the man chooses suffering. He reconciles the agony of death by concluding that pain now is part of the happiness. That's the deal.
a parting shot from bbman: in addition to his work on origin of the species, charles darwin spent a lot of time and effort trying to show that human emotions actually sprang from animals, saying that animals and humans act pretty much the same when besot with anger, fright, joy, etc. I think he was on to something. during this past week i have been happy as a lark, busy as a bee, hungry as a bear, crazy as a loon, proud as a peacock. well, you get the idea. you're the man, charles. Man, I must be crazy as a baboon for living here. Too hot in the summer. Too cold in the winter. More pea soup, please.
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