The storm is done and the sun is melting the ice and snow. Winter is once again backing off. There are still patches in the shade, but today’s high promises to send most of it packing. I might venture out. Mostly I’ve stayed on the porch since I’m no fan of ice and falls. And when I do walk around, I have a pole for support. Apparently, age brings a sort of wisdom, or a low tolerance for risk of bodily injury.

Stepped outside this morning to feed the cats, and the cold air greeted me like a rapacious animal, anxious to steal every ounce of my warmth. Icy fingers slipped beneath my jacket, inched up my pants legs, and tweaked my ears. Foolishly, I’d gone out in slippers and pajamas, wearing a thin house jacket. Luckily, the cat houses are on the southern porch and close to the door. I dropped off the food and scurried back inside.

I feel a little silly going on about this, but when your weather is the exception, rather than the rule, it’s what you talk about. It’s cold, below freezing cold. And it’s going to rain, sleet and maybe snow. The accumulation forecast looks to be light, but I’m not one to judge. I’m only here to accept my fate, although I’ll be inside so it’s not much of a terror unless something breaks, and I think the chances there are low.

If you’re prone to anxiety as, am I, then the internet is the worst thing that ever happened. It knows what interests you and gives it to you, in spades. Take the coming winter storm as it pertains to Central Texas. In its simplest form the storm is bringing cold and ice and possibly snow. But internet Cassandras are out in full force. They remind us of Snowpacolypse. They talk about ice. They warn of power outages. They are shrill. They are loud. They are constant. Why? Clicks!

We, my arborist son and I, planted a stand of Loblolly pines in the back lots. Luckily, they grow an average of 24 inches a year. So, I might get to see them grow to a decent height, ten feet in five years, twenty in ten. Maturity is out of the question because I’m what you might call mature myself. And I don’t think another 40 years is in the cards. And I can’t say, but you never know, because I’m pretty sure I do.

Went for a short walk yesterday. Stood and looked at a tree. A fairly ubiquitous sight, a tree. They’re everywhere, and they just stand there, mostly looking the same from day to day, month to month, and year to year. But as I looked at this tree, I thought of the scene in the Matrix where Neo suddenly viewed the world as strings of data and nothing was real, and I thought of the tree as a big collection of atoms, strings of data, with an entire life going on inside it.

We planted five oaks when we moved into this house sixteen years ago. Two Chinquapin. Four Lacy. And a Burr. The Lacys and one Chinquapin are part of the original planting. The Burr is the second of its kind, as is one of the Chinquapin. The current batch is doing well. I stand in their shade, strain to see the tops while there, and two of the Lacys are starting to overtop the drive, while another offers shade to our visitor parking spot.

There was a time when the noise of the highway down the street from us abated. Late at night and early in the morning. Those days are gone. The sound of rubber on asphalt comes at all hours now. The road between Johnson City and Fredericksburg, once country, has a winery and tasting room for nearly every mile between the two cities. Even Hye, a wide spot just down the road, has a winery and a distillery.

I like the black of night. The dark. Especially around the house. It’s comforting to step out onto the porch and see what only the light from the moon and the stars allows me to see. I feel one with the natural world. There's the wind and the leaves and rustling grasses. I see the movements in the shadows, hear the rhythmic noise of walking, especially the deer. 

Odd thing about life, when I go looking for something, I hardly ever find it, but when I’m not looking here something comes. On Tuesday night, I wasn’t looking for the Northern Lights, but I found them. On Wednesday night, I went looking, but didn’t see them. I did see a shooting star that felt really close, and that was a nice substitution, because I’ve gone looking for shooting stars before and never found them.

It’s exactly the sort of call you want in the middle of the night while dead asleep. “Dad! Go outside and look at  the Northern Lights.” I did as I was told and was rewarded with the most colorful night sky I’ve ever seen. And I was happy I lived in a country town with a dark sky ordinance, where the night sky counts as something we want to see and it’s not just a thing that hangs over our heads.

There’s a cold wind blowing, dried leaves are skittering down the dog run, heading south. The visiting Monarchs are departed. The heifers and their calves stopped by to feed this morning, and spooked when I came out onto the porch with my morning coffee. The cat boxes are ready for their first real test. Heat lamps go up this afternoon. I feel mostly recovered from whatever bug it was that bit me the other day. Pretty sure it was allergies, but isn’t that what everyone says.

More on the Monarchs. They’re sleeping in the Mesquite tree by the Evergreen Sumac. I assume they’re catching their breath before they continue their migration. I’m glad I’ve got a hotel with a nice restaurant close by for them. It makes me wonder if they were here last year or the year before, and I simply didn’t notice. It’s entirely possible. In the last several years November, for me, has been a month of travel and getting ready to travel. So, we easily could have been on separate journeys.

A swarm of Monarch butterflies stopped by yesterday to visit. They dined on the blooms of the Evergreen Sumac growing at the east corner of the south porch. It’s a first, and I was happy to be of service as they made their way south to breed. Milkweed may be a favorite food, but they sure seemed happy with the Sumac’s flowers. It will be interesting to see if there are more today.

A sure sign of winter for me is the moment after sunset when there is still light to see but it’s all indirect. In that moment, the landscape is nearly colorless. The grass is brown and the green trees dull. Everything seems lifeless and you know the cold is coming. I had that moment last night as I sat in my front room and looked out at the pasture just beyond my fence.

It’s a bright, cool Sunday morning. Early on, there was a heavy fog on the park pasture as the moist, warm ground met the cold northern air. It’s gone now, chased away by the sun. The rain washed air is clear and clean. The forecast for the week is dropping temps. We’ll soon be down in the 40s at night. Not really earth shaking news if you live somewhere else, but it’s what’s happening here. So, it's all I’ve got.

We had a big rain last night, and now I get to use words like turgid because the earth is full and swollen with water. Digging, if digging needs doing, will be easy and I have some I want to do. Formerly wilted leaves are fat with water and standing tall, and if you’re a tree it’s a good way to go into winter, with a belly full of water. On my little plot of earth, the rain gauge says we got an even inch. That’s six gallons on a square yard. If more falls today it will probably run off and head to the rivers.

Winter’s coming. That’s the promise. Rain tonight. Cool next week. Not cold, but it’s a start. We’ve already got the dark. The sun is off to warm other climes. It’s another phase in the long dance of our spinning planet around its sparkling sun as both move through the universe in tandem. Lot’s of forces at play.

Love is in the air. At least for my orb weavers. Two female garden spiders are hanging out at my place. One is in the dog run, and the other is out by the pool. Each is flanked by webs spun by their male counterparts. I don’t know how they decide to get together or who comes calling on whom. All I know is the victorious male will die shortly after the deed is done. I wonder if he knows that? Does die happy? The female will then lay her eggs in a nice sack and probably pass on sometime after the first frost.

I’m in a pickle. I have a spot on a back lot where I want to create a little garden area. I’ve set up some old fence panels to act as a trellis. I’ve got seeds for vines to grow there. I have numerous flowering plants at my disposal. In the center, however, I want a tree, but if I want it to grow to any size while I’m still alive, it will have to be a fast grower, and I’m more a fan of slow. The latter are sturdy trees with fine grained wood, and long lived. The former are brittle, drop branches, and die quick.