Yesterday I got up early and finished shoveling the snow from my walks and driveway right after breakfast. I headed to town fairly early, stopping at a truck stop in town to pick up some anti-gel for my truck. Although it generally does not get as cold here as South Dakota, I make sure to have the additive on hand for fill-ups when it is cold. No one has heard of number 1 diesel around here. It isn’t even available at truck stops, which is a surprise, because there are plenty of trucks heading north from here. Some are going all the way to the Yukon and Northwest Territories and others are heading for the Alaska highway. At any rate, I now have the fluid on hand for my next fill up and the bottle will last me longer than the cold weather will last as I don’t drive the truck that much in the winter.

After stopping there, I drove into Bellingham to be at a local computer store at opening time. The store doesn’t open early. 10 am seems to suit the staff and usual customers fine. the parking lot was empty and unplowed when I arrived and by a few minutes after ten I realized that the store wouldn’t be opening on time. I finally gave up and headed over to the church where I did a bit of work in the library and picked up our shop vacuum, which had been staying at the church to help with water clean-up after recent flooding caused by burst pipes during an especially deep cold snap last week. I hadn’t planned to go to Bellingham yesterday even though Thursday is my usual day to volunteer at the church library. Things are pretty much shut down by the snow.

After the church I headed back to our son’s farm where I dropped off the shop vacuum and visited with the family. All of the children were outdoors playing in the snow. The older kids had brought a snow shovel around. Their plan was to shovel a lot of snow behind their father’s car so that he wouldn’t go in to work. They like it when snow days include their father combining working from home with a lot of extra time for them. After a bit of negotiation, I convinced them that their time would be better spent adding to their sledding run. The farm is fairly level without any good sledding hills, but there were several drifts in front of the barn and there is a raised tank that is part of the septic system that provides a bit of a ramp for sledding. The children had plenty of effort for the task. I just hope that they remembered to return the shovel to its storage place. They have a bit of a tendency to leave tools out and it would take only a bit of wind and additional snow to make it hard to find when needed,

The forecast was for warming temperatures and rain by noon, but that never happened. It snowed lightly in the afternoon, and I believe the high for the day was about 30 degrees. The thermometer began slowly recoding warmer temperatures about midnight.

After lunch I filled up the bird feeders again. The little creatures are going through a couple of pounds of seed each day right now. Our bird feeders are very busy and popular places with the wisteria and cherry trees filling with birds. We don’t have many exotic birds. Our most frequent visitors are juncos and finches. We’ve seen at least one flicker and a couple of woodpeckers at the suit feeder. Yesterday a couple of red-winged blackbirds discovered the feeders. They seemed quite large compared to the tinier birds that are our regulars.

We live a little over a block from a stand of native birch that lend their name to our bay. Before colonization the entire area where our neighborhood now is developed was birch forest. The trees grow quite close to one another and they have shallow roots in the very moist soil. Where the native forest still stands in small patches downed and leaning trees are common and the undergrowth is so thick and the trees so close to one another that it is difficult to walk through them. There is a path along one side of the trees that is a favorite place for us to walk. We use it most days on our walk to the beach. The last couple of days, however, we’ve been just walking on the streets in our neighborhood as few sidewalks are cleared of snow and it is difficult to walk in the deep snow. The snow packed streets are fairly empty of cars most of the time and it is easy to walk in the middle of the street.

While it is very difficult for people to walk through the stand of birches, the area provides rich shelter for the birds. Most of the time, you can hear hundreds of them in the trees as you walk by. I’m pretty sure that a few of them have discovered the feeders in our back yard. They are definitely welcome. The entertainment provided by the birds far exceeds the cost of seed in my opinion. The thing is, once we have committed to feeding, we need to follow through and make sure that the feeders are full when the weather is cold or snowy. The little ones have become a bit dependent on us.

Clam days like the last few have seduced me into avoiding the news. I know that there is a lot going on in the world, and I usually follow the news, including US politics. Most days I read news from around the world to gain a perspective that isn’t always available from US media sources. But the last couple of days, I have scanned the headlines and forgone reading the articles. I have lots of books and a few magazines to read that are more entertaining and fun for me. I’ve convinced myself that one of the treats of retirement is to be able to allow myself to fall behind in reading the news. I’ll get back to it one of these days. In the meantime, I’m entertained by shoveling snow, watching the birds, and sipping a warm cup of tea. It is a luxury that I could not afford for many years, but one I am enjoying for now.

Stay warm and safe and let the world take care of itself for a few days. I’m pretty sure that there is much I can learn from the birds. Our neighbors are usually very patient teachers.