I Wonder as I Wander

A gorgeous December day!  It was 65º this afternoon - something we rural Kansans don't often experience in the first week of a December.  And in three short, short winter days, we will be back to the forecasted 6º we normally see in this season of Advent.  Weather moodswings, one could say?

I spent a goodly amount of time outdoors today.  I sanded down a door, and then applied several layers of polyurethane throughout the day.  It's to be a desk, eventually.

I climbed up in the barn loft and recovered the Christmas tree, in three different boxes.  I have no idea why that is, and it was an irritant.  The Christmas tree is kind of large, and exposed to the dusty, filthy elements eleven months of the year that it sits up in the hayloft, and so I took each branch and hosed it down and hung it on the grotto fence to dry overnight.  (Or freeze.)

I filled each birdfeeder, and hung suet for the woodpeckers, and filled birdbaths and duck pools.  Since this is the last "warm" day in the very near future, it was important to get these tasks ticked off my Index Card o' the Day.  (Yes: I make up a neon-colored index card each day and carry it in my pocket.  Things that are not accomplished get carried over to the following day's index card.  It is a useful practice.  Crutch. Whatever.)

There was work to be done, for sure, but also some pauses in the day to sit in an Adirondack and ponder.

Ponder what?

Well, I wonder why one of my four giant goldfish in the grotto pond seems to be in torpor state even thought it is 65º and the other three are hale and hearty.  Is he at death's doorstep?  Is he faking it?  Is he comatose, prepping for the coming single-digits coming our way?  Nature only knows.

I collected a few burr oak leaves from under one of our trees.  And I just studied them.  

I took a seat in an Adirondack out in the pine trees and called a friend and we talked and talked.

I picked up a cat here and there, lulling in the sun.  I think the kitties are lying in the sun, charging their solar batteries while they may.  I waved at a volunteer fireman who honked that firetruck horn as he passed my way - not to a fire, because that would entail a siren, not a noisy honk and a friendly wave.  

This evening that Spouse o' Mine called from out on the road somewhere in Western Kansas, and I sat in an Adirondack as we talked about the beautiful sunset we were both sharing, and the pretty burr oak leaves.  .

It was a fine day, and now I am cleaned up, dinner is nearly ready, and I am enjoying this 15th century Christmas ballad which made its way to Appalachia in the early 1900s:

The Cherry Tree Carol