We have an outlier squirrel running around the neighborhood, lately. It seems to be a healthy, perfectly formed fox squirrel, which is what we mostly have around here. Only, this particular fox squirrel has a black body. So, black body and brown fox-squirrel-colored tail, a striking color combination. Whether this is a fox-squirrel color variant or the result of fox-squirrel-black-squirrel hanky-panky, I don’t know. It’s provoked a double-take both times I’ve seen it tearing around, going about its squirrelly business. I wonder if it’s run into the blond, leucistic fox squirrel I see sometimes by Thurston Pond.
Our first snow of any note arrived last weekend, and stuck to the ground until yesterday. Usually, the first snow has a high moisture content, which makes it good packing snow. Packing snow exerts a powerful force on children, drawing pretty much all of them out-of-doors to build snowmen. This snow, alas, was not packing snow.
The snow that fell after the first accumulation hasn’t been packing snow either. I’ve seen a grand total of two snowmen in the neighborhood, short, scrawny creatures holding their shape by virtue of children’s willpower alone. One of the two looked to be a snow owl, about the size of an actual owl, and the other wasn’t much bigger, distinguishable as a snowman mostly because it had a carrot nose. Maybe we’ll get a do-over of packing snow next time.
Today, it’s raining, and has been raining for hours. Whether the precipitation will continue as rain or turn into something else—snow, or the dreaded “wintry mix” of rain and snow–depends on the temperature. The children, no doubt, hope for snow.
We had dinner at Cleary’s Pub in Chelsea, yesterday evening. We saw lots of deer, while on our way there. You always see deer along scenic, rural Joy Road. Their coats have thickened and darkened for the winter. Also, the farmers have finally been able to harvest their field corn, and the whitetails are out there gleaning. The darker coats and absence of corn stalks make them easier to spot.
We motored through Dexter, after dinner, and took Dexter-Ann Arbor Road the rest of the way home. This route takes us past some festive seasonal decorating. Sometimes, that’s a Christmas tree just visible in someone’s house. Sometimes, it’s a lot more. There’s one tree in particular that I look forward to seeing in its holiday splendor each year, and the householders have done their usual fine job with it this year. I couldn’t say what kind of tree it is; I only ever notice it on Christmas-season nights, covered with lights. It is some magnificent evergreen, hugely tall, and lit to the top. There is only darkness around it. I hope the folks who adorn it every year realize what a beacon it is.
We had a bagpiper in church last Sunday. He led the choir as they processed and recessed, and did the same for the actors, mostly children, who put on a play during the service. The piper, a brawny, bearded man, made the treks up and down the aisles, look inexorable. It’s easy to understand how bagpipes could figure in wars. Their sound is certainly thrilling.
During the singing of the final hymn, every Sunday, all the children who wish to do so, hustle up to the chancel steps. Some of them outright run. Many can be seen hanging on to a sibling’s hand, the older children slowing their steps so the younger ones can keep up. All of them are trying to get to the front in time to join in saying the final blessing, “Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.”
This is a big deal for some of the smallest. They’re looking out at a lot of expectant faces. Speaking under those circumstances can be daunting. Most weeks, there will be at least one child who misses the cue or can’t quite work up the nerve to participate. It doesn’t matter to anyone except the child. There will be another chance next week and the week after and all the weeks after that.
After the bagpiper had played the choir out, last Sunday, the kids’ scramble to the front looked a bit like a free-for-all. The pipes were so thrilling that the kids first forgot to go forward, then ran pell-mell to make up for it. It was a moment of glory for one little fellow, though. After the blessing, he shouted, “I said it!”
He probably thought the usual response was about his accomplishment: “Thanks be to God,” we all said, and meant it.
1 December 2023