As I sat in the laundromat last night because I did not want to spend the entire night catching up on the wash, my phone popped up with a weather warning. It does that a lot; it’s usually not for me, but perhaps they have refined it now – zeroed in, so to say.

A lady came in and starting talking snowstorm and my mouth scrunched up and my eyes darted from side to side in a moment of “Oh, rats – was that weather notice maybe valid?

This morning the snow is coming down at 31 degrees and it varies  between pelting my face and jacket and splatting them. It is heavy snow and I brought in lots of firewood. I had so much that I didn’t order any more this winter and so I have very dry wood of two years and seasoned wood from last year. Because that seasoned wood has had an extra year, it burns well and fast. What I need is a big, old, gnarled knot that is freshly cut and will go in a hot fire and sit there forever and just radiate a slow heat.

Ah, the wind is picking up; wet snow and wind. Limbs and power lines. Nothing to do but wait and let my boots dry before another OHA- Outside House Activity.

Not a name that I think of daily, but of late the first line of one of his poems has been marching through my head in a continuous loop.

I sometimes think of all the crosses in the cemeteries at Normandy and other battlefields and wonder that each one represents a mother’s heart – and I guess a father’s too.

And maybe I am thinking this because I would like to die for something. After all, dying is inevitable, why can’t it stand for something as well. Perhaps that is what we should put on our tombstones – what we would have died for. But, then, like a beauty contest, so many would put world peace. I think I am not so altruistic;  if it were necessary I would die for someone I loved. Not even have to think about it; do it in a heartbeat  . . . or the lack of one.