NEW YEAR WITH MANY HOPES

It is kind of a dull morning, threatening to snow but giving no appearance of getting stormy any time soon. It’s wonderful to look out over The Bog, and see the hundreds of wee birds flitting about the naked boughs of venerable old hardwoods. I’ve just restored an old bird feeder we haven’t used for several years, and I’m delighted life has returned to dine at Birch Hollow. We had to stop for awhile, and think about placement of all our feeders, due to the attraction to local deer. While I don’t begrudge deer from the occasional snack on our property, (they love to eat certain flowers and leaves which we’ve had to eliminate from our gardens as a result), the problem they represent to oncoming traffic is serious. Being on the upper end of our dead end street, we get some pretty high speeds rounding the corner, down onto the straightaway. Having the deer cross at our property back into the adjacent lowland, we call The Bog, could be dangerous to the deer and those heading home in the wee hours.....which seems to be the time of choice for our visitors including a moose this year.

I’ve been working at numerous writing projects early this winter, and I’ve spent a lot of time, in between assignments, staring out over the landscape, enjoying the view. There have been many years in my life when I went a long, long time without even thinking about this “great vista,” or “enchanted snowscape.” I’ve changed a lot over the years. I ponder a lot more now, and the pace of course, is a little lighter than when I was producing an entire summer season’s editorial copy from January to April, for The Muskoka Sun. I hate deadlines but I was bang-on for more than a decade, and even if it killed me, the copy would be delivered to the publisher at least two days before my most optimistic submission date, and a week or more ahead of the paper’s insisted time. What can I say. I’m obsessive about deadlines and my adherence to them. Till now. I’ve given myself a tad more flexibility.

I will be returning more actively to my blog-site this winter now that my modest deadlines for copy have been met and well, yes, undercut from the publisher’s expectation. Heck I’ll be dead two days before the Grim Reaper had me scheduled for pick-up. That’ll tick ‘em off, eh? I like to be prepared. I even do this when filling up with gas. Geez I always end at .98 cents instead of hitting an even amount. It’s my signature to gas bar attendants, and I love to see the puzzled look on their faces when I leave the two cents behind. It’s worth the two cents to see them ponder “how crazy is this guy.” It’s not that I’m giving them a tip or anything.....it’s just what I feel is a lucky number, and it, well, sort of works. I’m habitually ahead of expectation and it’s how I motivate myself for future projects......some that are pretty labor intensive. Even my own!

Have a safe and healthy start to a great New Year.