Spring Comes Early

 It is February 1 and the calendar shows another seven weeks of winter. But this one's been different. In fact, there hasn't been any winter. My total snowfall still adds up to a single inch.

 Today was another exceptional day. We topped out at 62°. The record high for this date was 64° in 1989. The average temperature for today was 54°; the normal is 29°. Crazy weather we're having.

 For one who is forever watching the sky, I've seen plenty of beautiful clouds. But none, I suppose, have been any prettier than these today. Mostly they have been high wispy cirrus, mares tails that sweep across the sky like ghostly brooms. There are the dainty white fair-weather cumulus, too. At times the sky is nearly overcast; at other times it is almost clear. At all times it is beautiful.

 What is water? What is sky? Today the two are the same pure blue. It is nearly calm, too, so the air is as peaceful as a late spring day, one that causes you to tarry, never hurry about. That three-dimensional sky feels as though one could be sucked right up into it. Lose balance for a second and you risk falling up.

 This is my favorite shot of the day. I love how the cirrus are angled and how the sweep of the white pine follows the line of the clouds. I love the deep blacks, the crystal blue, the frothy whites. It is a celestial ocean there over our heads. What seashore offers a more compelling view than this? We swim in an atmospheric sea.

 As I arrive back home from the Farmersville-Jackson Twp. Joint Park, I see that Pinehaven's sky is equally stunning. To the northwest, cirrus almost obscure the blue. And yet as the day becomes late, I don't care. It was enough to have the sunny hours we already enjoyed. I cannot ask for more.

The Ring

 I am reading on the sofa. Mom is reading in her chair.

 Only, when I look up, she is not reading. She is sleeping. It is the bain of her existent. "I cannot sit here and try to read without falling to sleep," she says. That probably has something to do with getting up most days at 4:30 a.m.

 But as I stare at her, across the sun-filled living room, I see that her left arm is raised. Even from across the room I see that its color is no longer normal. It is shaded toward purple, colored with the years of work, tinted with toil. It is the proof of 86 years. Even from my seat, I see her golden wedding ring shine in the early morning light.

 In a moment she wakes and looks at me. Subconsciously she knows she is being watched. She smiles and lowers her hand to her book. She is reading about Queen Elizabeth.

 I tell her to stay as she is, leave her hand where it lands. I go for my camera to record the moment.

 I ask her the story behind her wedding ring. "We bought them at Zechman's," she tells me. "I think it was on the right side of what is now the Market Square building," That's the current home of the Miamisburg Historical Society.

 "How early did you buy them?" I ask. Mom and Dad were married on November 24, 1945.

 "I don't know. I just don't remember. I'm not sure Dad even asked me to marry him. We just started talking about it," she smiles.

 Dad's ring was gone years before. Back in 1987, when we first moved to Pinehaven, Dad's arthritis swelled his knuckles to the point that he feared he'd have to have the ring cut off some day. So while he still could remove it, he did. He placed it in Mom's jewelry box.

 Our house was burglarized less than two months after moving in. The jewelry box and all of its contents were one of the things taken. The ring was never replaced. "It wouldn't have been the same ring," Mom said.

 But Mom's ring has been on that finger for nearly 67 years and I suspect it's as much a part of her as the finger itself. And though the link is broken - Dad died last May - I know that there is some connection that is eternal. I think of the ring Abraham Lincoln gave to Mary. "Love is eternal" were the words engraved on the inside.

 While Mom's ring has no engraving, their lives together, their day-to-day existence, is their story. My brother and I are a continuation of that story, proof of something solid beyond gold.

Moon, Jupiter & Venus

 It is as lovely an evening as winters allow. At 6:45 pm it's 31° and a west wind is lazily blowing from almost due west. That's where things will happen in just two and a half hours, where the moon and Jupiter will gather in the sky, just 3° apart.Even now, they're cozying up in the southern sky, high above the back porch, and I've come out to enjoy the view. Besides, placing the garage between me and the wind is a smart thing to do.

 The moon and Jupiter are already plenty close and the little bit of difference between now and 9 pm isn't enough to force me back outside so close to bedtime. So I'm standing in PJ's and a robe as it is, covered with a hoodie and a winter coat, and angling the camera atop a tripod for the best view I can get ... now.

 There above me, the moon nears its first quarter and displays a ragged bunch of craters near the terminator. I can't quite see them with my natural vision, failing as it is, but if I punch some telephoto into the camera, they resolve nicely.

 The evening is quiet and there is still a blue-black glow in the west. I don't hear a dog bark and even the traffic seems stopped for now. It is still the supper hour, I suppose.

 A wide view from this vantage shows Jupiter (l) racing the moon across the sky for its close-up meeting with the moon. To show both in the same frame, I can't use the telephoto, so both objects are small - about life-size, I'd say. Even without a telescope, if I push the camera to 20x on Jupiter, the four Galilean moons show themselves.

 You'll have to look at this picture with your lights turned down low. That bright "star" is Venus, commanding the south-western sky at the same time. I am shooting around the dinner bell,  silhouetted by the westerly glow. In the distance, the winter-bare maples stand stark and cold.

 It is a gorgeous evening, made even the better because it was predicted to be cloudy. Two of the brightest planets and the moon are putting on a free show. It's the best kind.

Cottage Dill Bread

 Right off, I have to admit we cheated a bit. Our Cottage Dill Bread, which left our house smelling like pickles all day yesterday, was produced mostly in our automatic breadmaker. We figure the mixing and kneading phases can be easily automated ... and why not?

 We've wanted to make this again for quite some time. The first time we made it, a year or so ago, it didn't quite turn out. Mom wonders whether she added all the ingredients in the correct amount. It looked great until we baked it - and that we do quite traditionally in the oven - when a small section of the top dimpled and fell. Even so, the bread was wonderful.

 Here's the finished product, just sliced. Oh, the wonderful aroma! It would drive a pregnant woman mad!

Cottage Dill Bread


1/2 cup water (warm. about 100°)
2 cups white flour
1 tablespoon dry milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon margarine (or butter)
1/4 cup cottage cheese (we prefer Michigan brand)
1/2 tablespoon dry onion
1/2 tablespoon dill seed
1/2 tablespoon dill weed
2 teaspoon active dry yeast (or 1 teaspoon fast rise)

 A few notes on putting the ingredients together: We combine all the dry ingredients in a large measuring cup (minus the yeast). I mix the water and the cottage cheese to blend it thoroughly before pouring it into the bottom of the breadmaker's pan. I pour the dry ingredients atop the liquid. The margarine goes in on top of the dry ingredients and the baking pan is placed in the breadmaker. The yeast is them added to the special dispenser on the breadmaker (which adds it later).

A note about the yeast: I prefer the Fleischmann's active dry yeast. I also had some Montrachet yeast left from winemaking (about a teaspoon) and I added that, too. I didn't want it to get old and I thought it would work well in this way. It did.

When the dough is made (almost 2-1/2 hours), we take it out, knead it gently on a floured pastry cloth, form it into a single loaf, and place it into a greased bread pan. Keep it in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes. It should double in size.

Bake it for about 30 minutes at 350° until golden brown. If you tap on it with a knuckle, the loaf should sound hollow.

Mom smears the loaf - all sides - with margarine while it is still warm. That softens the crust. This bread is best served warm and eaten at once.

Grave Matters

 On a foggy, misty winter's day, I often enjoy a walk at the cemetery. The place was made for silent contemplation. I love reading the inscriptions of the stones, the text further muted by the rain, washing the carving out to a uniform black on the oldest stones.

 There are two cemeteries, back to back, just north of Pinehaven. Less than two miles away, William and Susanna Sholly, the original owners (builders, actually) of this house lie quiet at Holp Cemetery. The house passed to their grandson, Orville Shell, in 1929. The property transfer came six months before the stock market crash and the start of the Depression. I wonder if he was happy to have it? He kept it a dozen years.

 Here I am near the north edge of the cemetery, looking south. Those dark tombstones stick up out of the ground like stumps. In the distance, pines divide the cemetery nearly in half.The southern section was first used and is full. Where I stand the graves are sparse and mostly new. These are mostly my contemporaries at my feet.

Across Chicken Bristle Road stands Slifer's Presbyterian Church and to its rear and south, the Slifer's Cemetery stands. These graves are among the oldest I know, well back into the early days of the 19th century. Most of the stones are single, thin vertical slabs of sandstone, many worn by the weather, automatically erasing themselves with each new storm through the eons.

 How black these old stones become in the rain! Gray in dry weather, they immediately darken when wet. Over the years - two centuries in many cases - the stones have begun to lean, half the time throwing their engraved face to the sky. Like the inhabitants below, they are disappearing from our memory. They were; that is the best we can say.

 The largest, most elaborate memorials, stand the least. It would seem each generation of young people target the cemeteries for their pranks and the larger the stone, the more magnificent the tombstone, the more targeted it becomes. While the smallest stones still stand - and those placed level with the ground, while erased by the weather or overgrown with grass, remain intact - the tallest obelisks invariably lie on their sides, else thrown up against neighboring stones.

Because of their incredible weight, they will not soon be righted.

If there is a lesson here it is this: let your life be your memorial. Nothing else will stand the test of time.

Day to Day

 How the pond changes each day is enough reason to walk its perimeter. Now liquid as a spring day, now frozen hard, now broken and dashed about by the breeze. This winter is even more erratic; it can change in a few hour's time.

 Yesterday (01/26/12) the pond was enveloped in a cool (42°) fog. It worked its wispy fingers through the pine branches and scattered across the icy surface of the pond like a lighter-than-air skater. The scene moved. Though I have seen these pines almost daily for a quarter of a century, I do not think I have ever seen them exactly the same twice.

 On the opposite shore (west) the white pines stand in a firm row, with a single gap, as though a front tooth was missing. The pond holds some ice though it struggles for the surface, covered by a moderate rain. The atmosphere is white with a foggy mist.

 I saw that a bag of fish food was left on the bridge area, the top torn open and spoiled by the rain. Nuggets of this food - about the size of Purina Dog Chow - litter the eastern surface of the pond. Someone feared that the fish wouldn't have enough to eat. But the winter is mild and the fish, I imagine, are safely slumbering the months away, not quite asleep, not quite fully awake with their opaque roof hard overhead.

I will continue walking the pond when the weather permits, even slightly. It is a scene that changes as surely as the sun crosses the sky.

A Winter's Sunrise

 Already the cold has begun to abate. It was 30° as I began my walk, 35° as I ended it. I came into the house damp with sweat. A heavy long-sleeve shirt, hoodie and winter coat was too much. How quickly it changes. A few days ago it would not have been nearly enough.
 And yet I am happy for the break. It is breathing room. As I walked, sky still clear and blue overhead, the southwestern horizon displayed gathering clouds that spread upon me and lowered as I walked. It was like having a thick gray woolen blanket pulled across my head.

 As I walked out our driveway, the Shell farm, across the field to our east, shows the heavy gray cloud deck moving towards Dayton. Even so, there is a slit at the horizon and the sun glows orange at about 8:15 am. It is going to be a dark, solemn day; there is no doubt about rain approaching.

 And yet as I turn around and hoof back Sam's lane, the northwestern sky is still a lovely baby blue. Puffy cumulus begin to dot the atmosphere along with jet contrails, businessmen already on their way to heaven-knows-where. I love the bare trees just now, thin black branches etched against the cool blue. It is a bracing time of year, one I would not want to miss even though I hate to pay to heat the house.

 A little farther back and the tree which stood at the right of the previous picture now command the foreground. In mere minutes, the clouds have moved and new contrails blossom. It is deadly quiet this morning. Not a dog barks (the cold air, the rising sun must mean time to crawl back into their bed of straw and sleep). And yet, as I turn to walk back out the lane I hear something that reminds me of thunder - it cannot be. It is a ponderous boom, due west of me, and must be some work being conducted near the village. As I walk further it repeats a single time. And both times I stopped in my tracks,  turned around and watched the sky. I saw nothing.

Now, though, is a good time to take a panorama of the sky, now before the clouds have given the atmosphere a common, boring, thick gray. I start on the north, swing eastward, favor the sky and not the horizon, stop when the frame holds a thin smear of sunset at its right edge. The shot covers about 100°.

Trouble is, a panorama that dismisses the rule of holding the camera level, means that the shots must be stitched together at odd angles producing a weird result. And yet, dismissing this, the sky was my subject and the sky takes center stage as it should.

We'll have a cloudy day. Later rain will begin to overspread the area (not snow as the temperatures of a few days ago would have suggested). By evening it will be raining and we'll have a rainy night. What? Half, three-quarters of an inch? It will be wet, muddy again. The pond's ice will melt. Winter is on the calendar but spring keeps snatching the very air.