Wadin' and Wearisome Weather

Seemed like a consensus yesterday here in the Northwest.

Lots of human happy tanks seemed to be running on empty.

Welcome to the first chapter of January 2020 intolerance.

Mother Nature is handing us a variety of weather extremes---some pretty and back-breaking; others downright messy and treacherous.

While sitting here at the computer listening to a ukulele CD, I’m feeling wet pant legs.

An all-day generous dose of snow, which meant more than half a dozen trips to the satellite dishes, quickly transitioned into an all-night, nonstop drenching of rain, which is still going pitter patter on the roof.

Imagine all that rain on all that snow.  The combination translates into deep mush.  In some cases, the mush goes above boot tops.

My horses are still in the barn eating their hay.  The paper has not arrived. And, I risked life and limb in the darkness retrieving our mailbox from the ditch.

Some people may look upon us unfavorably for never really nailing our mailbox down on a firm post.

The box itself rests on a movable 4 by 6 post while a nail hole on the board near the back post is big enough that I can replace the entire structure relatively easily after a snow plow sends it into the ditch.

I have put the mailbox back on its stand numerous times over the years.  The positive part of this repetitive process is that the box and its long board have remained in one piece after every snow plow assault.

So, what looks really dumb actually works.

This morning’s dark/wet reassembling session could have been disastrous with that slippery slop, but God must have been on my side as I pulled board and box out of the snow, propped the box on the movable post and hit the nail hole at the other end on the first attempt. 

Besides the ughhhhy weather, there seems to be an epidemic of the blues aka January mindset:  we have a LONG time to tolerate this stuff.

Sounds like we're spoiled, I know, but for some of us, years and years of enduring the winter waiting game can cause this attitude to come on more quickly each year. 

Actually, I kinda surprised myself yesterday, maintaining a fairly positive attitude throughout the day----taking pictures of pretty snow, plowing, shoveling, reading a book, nibbling on chocolates and cheese and even the usual yelling at the villains on TV news.

The latter is always hard on little Foster.  

He keenly senses the exact second Mom turns mad and precisely who she's mad at. 

Like our instant response to January, on hearing the first negative word, Foster rises from his slumber, then slowly and apologetically cowers his way over to wherever I'm sitting.

"I'm sorry, Foster," I always say, reassuring him that "it's not you; it's just the evil one and his sychophants on the TV screen."

He usually seems to understand and then goes back to napping. 

Anywho, we still have 24 more days of this January endurance.  

It's tough on the mindset, but when we consider the awful weather tragedies occurring in other parts of the world, we must  "chin up" and press on in finding pleasant distractions.

Could be worse.  

Yesterday when I announced to Bill that I was going outside to do what I knew not, he suggested, "Well, you could start painting the fence." 

Obviously, not a great option, but at least I could fantasize how nice it will be when I can paint the fence in the midst of gardening, mowing lawn, weeding, walking horses to and from pasture, and the million other things to do that come when January is in the rear headlights. 

And, so it goes.  

The rain must fall, and we must endure. 

Happy Tuesday.