Tidbits From the Island of Hula

-It has finally warmed up here to the forties. Thank heavens. I was getting tired of chipping the frozen snot off my face after my midday runs.
-Speaking of running, I spit on myself Tuesday while running. There's a trick to getting rid of the excess saliva while on the run., and I screwed it up big time. Jim Croce was right when he said you don't spit into the wind.
-Every month I get together with girlfriends and play Bunco. Which means we roll dice for three hours as an excuse to eat decadent desserts and dish about hormones, husbands and mothers-in-law. Sunday night is our annual Bunco slumber party. It may or may not include adult beverages and karaoke. If you hear dogs howling in the middle of the night, don't worry. They're just hearing me sing.
-Did you hear that Teddy Pendergrass died? Oh, the memories of the 80's his music brings back.
-We cook for Mama J. and Papa T. each night, and Papa T. likes simple food. We found out this week he does NOT like pasta with clam sauce or vegetarian patties made from black eyed peas. We also found out that clams stink up the house.
-We are apparently out of air freshener.
-The good news is I have cobbled together enough Christmas money and leftover lunch money to buy that camera lens I want. The bad news is you will be subjected to my learning curve with the new lens.
-We have to take Papa T. to the doctor's office tomorrow for lab work. Pray for us brothers and sisters. It could be a long afternoon.
-And mama called me today on my cell phone to ask me if I had bought that new cell phone yet. She said she wanted to find out if my cell number had changed. Doy.

Giggle of the Day

On the morning commute I had my iPod on "Top 25 Songs". I never use that setting. Apparently, number 4 in my iPod library of most listened to songs is the Reverend James Cleveland's Get Right Church. Number 5? Joan Jett's Do You Want To Touch Me. I giggled so hard the guy in the big beer truck next to me at the stoplight looked at me like I was crazy.

Seasons in the Sun

When I went searching for winter beauty shots Saturday, I immediately headed for the wildlife refuge near my house. I’m guaranteed to find some great nature subjects there, plus it’s a very soothing place to be. It’s quiet. There’s rarely any traffic, and I can stumble around the edges of the refuge without getting shot for trespassing on private property. People are very funny about having their property photographed, and there are a lot of gun owners around these parts. I spend a lot of time in ditches on public right of ways.

The refuge was beautiful in its winter dusting of snow. The sun shined brightly on the sparkles of crystal, and the snow had gone untouched except for the occasional deer tracks. My boots left the only mark of man, and I tried to step lightly. It seemed wrong to disturb the snow there. It was just a beautiful place to be, despite the frigid temperatures. I felt very close to God, and not just because I was praying for warmth.

I always find something new there to capture with the camera, but I especially like to revisit certain spots to catch a plant or patch of water in the different seasons. I enjoy seeing how things change from season to season. See?

The boat on the pond in the spectacular fall sun.
And again in the winter, covered in snow.

The fluttering leaves on the trees around the pond in October.
And the papery bare branches in January.

There’s more. Like that patch of standing water. Fall.
Winter.

The fences that surrounds it. Fall.
Winter.

I could do this all day. Fall goldenrod.
Winter goldenrod.

And my favorite. My beloved sunflowers. I have three seasons of these. Summer.
Fall.
And winter.

Cool. I must admit, this whole process has given me a better appreciation for winter. I'm not ready to say I like winter. I'm just tolerating it a whole lot better than I did last year because I'm pausing to examine it closely. I’d like to have photos of a few of my favorite "refuge" subjects in all four seasons, so I can display them in some way in my house. I need two more seasons. I can’t wait for spring. But I've gotta get some better boots.

Thank Goodness for Under Armor

Our temperatures were in the single digits this weekend, with wind chills at the bottom of the thermometer. It was cold enough to stick your tongue to a flag pole. If you were so inclined. I was not. In fact, I wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything this past weekend. I just wanted to huddle inside in front of the fireplace with Ford County and let John Grisham amuse me between bowls of homemade soup. However, the light layer of snow kept teasing me with its glistening little wisps, fluttering around the yard and gleaming in the sun like Hollywood made for movie snow, all the time whispering, “Wienie”. Sometimes we get only one snow a winter, and even though it was butt freezing cold, I was afraid I’d miss my only opportunity this year for snow pictures, so I pulled on three layers, a hat, gloves and boots and headed for the door with my camera. And my cell phone in case I fell in a wet ditch and needed someone to pull me out before my core body temperature dropped to sixty degrees.

I’m sometimes jealous of folks like A New England Life, who seem to be surrounded by photogenic scenery such as bridges and gristmills that lend themselves to beautiful snow covered landscapes. We just don’t get that kind of snow around here, and this is farm country, so historic buildings are rare in my neighborhood. However, this is a beautiful part of the country, and I like sharing it with you. That way if you never get to Kentucky you’ll know that there’s more to us than the stereotypes you see in the movies and that one tornado victim with no teeth the reporters always find for national news stories. This, my dear readers, is my community in January’s frosty squeeze.

Don't Tell Mama I Said This But....

Every time I look at this picture of her and Special Delivery

I think of this scene from Forrest Gump:And then I walk around all day trying to work into conversation, "We wus like peas and carrots."

Christmas Peek-A-Boo

I swear, that boy could eat a live toad and we would think it's cute.

The Snow is Falling! The Snow is Falling!

It’s supposed to snow here tonight, 2-4 inches. In Minnesota or New Hampshire they call that a nuisance snow. Here we call it- HOLYMOTHEROFMABELTHEWORLDISCOMING TOANENDHEADFORTHEBUNKERS!! While our winters are kind of a crazy mix of sun, clouds and rain, they’re mostly just chilly with one or two bone chilling spells. Occasionally, we even get some mild temperatures. It’s just one big mixed up ball of wax that plays havoc with everyone’s sinuses for four months. We don’t get much snow. In fact, it usually snows just once or twice a season. Sometimes not at all. Which means we don’t handle snow very well. We’re not as bad as my friends in Alabama and Mississippi who drive in a ditch if a flake hits the road, God bless them, but we’re pretty darn close. It takes only a little snow to have us sliding off the roads like penguins on a glacier, but our panic starts well before the first snow hits the ground. As soon as the weather man starts predicting snow, we act like Chicken Little and start stocking up on food, cigarettes and beer.

Granted, we’re all a little shell shocked from last year’s ice storm and three week power outage. The occasional flicker of the lights makes us wince and worry. In fact, one of my neighbors fired up his generator during a short power outage recently “just in case”.

We don’t want to get caught with our pants down. EVER. AGAIN. And we don’t want to be without the necessary provisions, but this panic is nothing new. The two days before any snowfall will find every Western Kentuckian in the grocery store buying bread, milk and eggs. While we may pick up a few other items, we mostly buy bread, milk and eggs. It’s not that we adhere to the theory that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s just what we buy. We don’t know why. We just do it. I’ve asked people to explain it to me, but they can’t. Our mothers did it. Their mothers did it. (Their grandmothers just went out back and reached under a chicken, but that’s another post.) It’s just tradition that no one questions.

The shelves at the local Wal-marts and Kroger’s are picked clean of those items right now. A friend of mine went to Wal-mart last night, and the only thing left in the giant egg case was four cartons of organic eggs. I’d show you a picture of the empty shelves, but that would require a trip to the store, and I’m trying to avoid that zoo at all costs. Besides, store management gets a little nervous when you drag a big Nikon in there to photograph the bread looting.

I’m not worried. The Hula-gen’s keep a well stocked pantry because we cook most of our meals at home. I have a freezer full of beef, corn on the cob, school fundraiser cookie dough and half eaten ice cream. We have half a loaf of wheat bread which should last us until Saturday, unless we get on some kind of crazy toast kick. And we sometimes go for two or three days at a time without cracking open our milk jug. (Which might account for the osteopenia developing in my left hip.) I think we’ll be fine, but if we get desperate we have those fifteen jars of tomatoes I canned this summer.

I’m no fan of winter, but I am looking forward to taking a few pictures of the snow tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m going to hunker down in my nice warm house and wait for the mayhem to get really wound up tomorrow morning. Sunrise should bring some school closings even if we get only a couple of inches of snow, but maybe not for Teen Angel’s school district. Their superintendent used to live in northern Indiana.