Having awakened numerous times in the night due to the gusts of wind creating their wintery chords in the trees, I found myself not wanting to get up with a feeling I hadn’t enough rest. It was no surprise to find snow, but at least we didn’t receive as much wind and cold as predicted. If last night was the greatest blast of the arctic vortex we were supposed to get, I’m not too worried about the next few days. Once the sun started climbing higher and the wind dissipating a bit, the cold didn’t seem to bother so much.
My day was a bit of a whoosh when discovering the sun starting to set in the west. I know Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but if one is leisurely performing tasks that would otherwise have to be carried out after hours, I think it’s forgivable. One of my clients has been off work for a week and mentioned he’s glad he’s going back tomorrow due to the feeling of time being much too heavy on his hands. I wonder what he would have thought about heavy time had he been following me around today. One of my chores was to help an elderly woman whom I’ve known for some time get her invoices and bills in order. I inwardly laughed whenever she thought I was going to shred something important. I would have to take time to explain to her what was being shredded and of course she would give the nod to dispose of it. It really didn’t bother me because I know how much the elderly want to stay “connected”. Nesting is something that I can’t seem to find myself doing. When stacks of papers start bearing even the slightest resemblance of nesting, I make time to get them filed or shredded. I’ve worked very hard to keep from getting junk mail but there always seems to be those lists of addresses that get sold to mail marketers. The trick I’ve found in keeping the mailings at a minimum is to not sign up for any sort of rewards cards that many of the businesses push at their check-out counters. The more one’s name and address gets added to various company computers, the more likely you’re going to get mailings. The cyber attacks that have been happening these past years are getting as well more scary. I empathize with those people who’ve had their data stolen and used in some nefarious way. Just imagine what some naughty monkey is doing with your information while hacking into a main frame while seated in some dark closet-like room in a Siberian city one can’t even begin to pronounce let alone find on a map.
In spite of the cold, I happened to notice wildlife activity around the city. The squirrels were doing their zig-zag hoping about in the snow looking for their buried treasures, the deer seemed to be in some sort of “herd mode” as to my dis-belief while driving north on South Virginia, there were at least fifteen deer sauntering across the street. That spot definitely needs a deer saunter sign. For some reason they’ve always reminded me of the world’s largest rabbits. They eat what rabbits eat, they have a cotton-like tail like a rabbit, ears like a rabbit’s, and when running they hop like rabbits. So they’re rabbits. Right? As chance would have it I had my camera with me when I spotted a small hawk that must have caught one of the wintering finches near a bird feeder. Sounds terrible but I guess even in nature, food is where the food is on the ladder of the food chain. In spite of the cold and wind, if we take the time to notice, there’s even on some of the most biting days, winter beauty. The photo above is of that small hawk I spotted today.
