Is That Oak?

I get home from work. It's late. I'm tense and tired. It's been a long day. I've got to get a fire going in the masonry stove before we sit down to eat. So I get the doors open to the stove. Turn around and reach over to grab a stick of wood. Standing there is Sophia (2 yrs. old). Before I can ask her for the stick she fires three quick, rhythmic questions off at me:

"Is that oak? Is that oak? Is that oak?"

It sounded like bird song, it was that rhythmic. I smiled proudly knowing that I didn't know what a stick of red oak firewood looked like until I was atleast 18. She's ahead the game in that regard. And damn cute in the process. Needless to say the tension lifted.

Time To Blow Snow

If you live in northwestern Wisconsin, and haven't been outside yet, there is close to a foot of fresh snow on the ground, and it's still coming down. Time to put on my bibs, boots, hat and gloves and trudge out to my pic-up to head over to my dads to load up the snowblower. That'll be close to a dozen times this year. I don't think I've loaded up the snowblower this many times in total in the past decade. It's just been a tough winter. I can only imagine what the deer and turkeys are feeling right now. The robin that I saw last Saturday, it's probably packed up and is almost to the Wisconsin/Iowa border by now.

Impatience

It's 20 below zero before the sunrise on this Thursday morning. Despite the frigidly cold weather I noticed a couple signs of spring on the mail route yesterday. Saw two eagles sitting together on the branch of an oak tree over looking a farmer's pasture. From the looks of them I got the impression they could be thinking about having little ones together. Also noticed a lot of oak leaves blowing around on top of the waste-high snow in my front yard. Perhaps the oaks have gotten impatient. They're decided to start pushing their new buds out and shedding the old, brown, shriveled up leaves that've hung on all winter.

These two lines from Rumi keep running through me head:

"My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
I become a torture to those I'm with."

Off to unexpectedly deliver mail again this morning.

Priapus's Hard-on

My morning started with a question. Why does priapus have a permanent hard-on? Then while doing some research on that I got sidetracked by a quote:

"Tell me for what you yearn and I shall tell you who you are. We are what we reach for, the idealized image that drives our wandering."--James Hillman

Back to priapus. A few reflections: From what I know about priapus so far health class would've been much more interesting if priapus would have been introduced. Sex would have lost some of its heaviness, I think. He also lightens things up when the subject of sex comes up with your 14 year old son. If you don't believe me look up some images of him.

Now it's time to go deliver mail in the polar vortex. While doing the route yesterday the temperature didn't get above -12 F. I've been noticing a lot of deer tracks along the wood edges. They have to be really struggling right now.

It's 25 Below Zero

Rolled out of bed this morning at 5:30 AM to get the fire started in the house. The thermometer reads 25 below zero. We've been burning wood for well over 3 months now and will be for at least another 4. It's our only source of heat. The other day I read a quote by Sinclair Lewis about winter that a facebook friend shared, it went something like, "Winter is not a season but an occupation." Makes about as much sense as the oft repeated quote by Lewis, "It's hard to make a man understand something if his paycheck depends on it."

I hope I didn't butcher those quotes too badly.

Cold and Machines

Yesterday morning it was 25 below zero here in Northwestern Wisconsin. Our car didn't start. I cranked and cranked on it but it wouldn't fire. Pissed off, my dad and I finally towed it four miles down the road to his heated garage. A couple hours later I got it running and Annie was able to use it on the mail route in the afternoon (she is a part time rural route carrier for the U.S postal service).

But while I was sitting in the driver's seat of a car where the temperature inside the cab was well below zero, and being towed down the road in my pic-up being driven by my dad, I couldn't help but think about this quote by Chuang Tzu:

Whoever uses machines does all his work like a machine. He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. It is not that I do not know of such things; I am ashamed to use them.