January 30: Home is wherever you are

Being at the farm over the weekend reminded me to check in on the pipe organ mud dauber nests. A closer inspection revealed some nests on -- this will give you an idea how long the area has been undisturbed -- an old horse halter hanging on a nail. Opportunistic, those dirt daubers!

January 31: Dreams of moss

In the short British television series Bob & Rose, there's a scene in which a character visits another character's flat for the first time and discovers moss growing on her windowsill. On the inside of the windowsill. The idea, I think, is supposed to be that the woman who lives there is so untidy that unwelcome things are actually growing in her house. But I got something else from it. I live in a climate that can get quite hot, and when it's hot it is sometimes dry. To me, moss represents lushness. Moisture, shade, soft darkness, the greenest green, things you long for in August. I'd love to have a stone bathroom with jungle plants and moss on the windowsill. Bathing in a forest? Yes please!

February 1: Weather dynamics

I'm tempted to declare early spring here... or the end of winter, maybe. It's pretty typical of our late January, February, we get some days that seem much too warm, as if it's the middle of spring, and then thunderstorms, tornadoes perhaps, a little more cold weather but usually we're just on the wrong edge of a system that's dumping snow on other folks. A lot of see-sawing between muggy warmth and cold rain, basically. It's hard when there's still enough of a chance of snow that it's reasonable to hope. Once March comes you know it's too late. (And you can be wonderfully surprised if snow does come!)

Today was unusually dynamic, even for February 1. Torrential, lukewarm rains all morning, then it started clearing up and the wind changed from an east wind right around to a west wind which sent the temperature dropping by about 30 degrees. You just sit back and watch. The weather may frustrate me sometimes, but it's rarely boring here, and that's something for which I'm grateful.