DRIFTING LEAVES, QUACKING DUCKS, AND C-C-C-C-COLD!

It's been a cold, damp, cold, dark, cold, rainy day here along the river.

Cold, too.

There's an old country saying that autumn goes slipping down the river. The truth of this was visibly evident every time the wind blew, which instantly sent a pile of lemon-yellow boxelder leaves pouring onto the water, as if some profligate pirate were suddenly seized by the desire to hurl away a fortune in gold doubloons.

The newly-freed boxelder leaves would join the occasional maple, hackberry, and sycamore, all of them in their various hues bobbing along upon the slow-moving current like autumnal confetti. This wasn't the main leaf-fall that gives the season its name—but a good precursor of things to come…and possibly sooner than we expect if the weather continues to deteriorate.

I did mention it was cold, right?

Okay, so maybe you folks in Canada and Minnesota and North Dakota don't consider 43F degrees cold. Well, neither do we Ohioans, usually. But confound it, it sure felt cold here today. I huddled at my desk, electric heater on HIGH, yet shivering still, chilled to the bones and feeling a lot like Bob Cratchit trying to keep warm with a single lump of coal in Scrooge's counting house.

The cold—or more likely the steady light drizzle—discourage feeder visitors, too. Only the chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice seemed unaffected. The squirrels stayed inside their snug hollow in the big sycamore near the drive. With the bunch of 'em nestled cozily together, all in their nice fur robes, I bet they were toasty.

I wasn't. I was COLD!

Just before the rain came I went out and tossed the ducks a second scoop of cracked corn. I'd given them one early on, soon after daylight, in hopes of keeping them from quacking like dependent fools and waking the neighbors. A duck could get shot for such behavior hereabouts.

Have to told you I've been feeding those two white ducks who came floating dowstream like wandering featherdusters a couple of months back? [post]

Well, I have, and I can assure you that while ducks may not be the smartest birds to ever waddle up from the sandbar, they're easily the loudest. And like any good bum on the lam, they never forget the source of a free meal. All I have to do is step out onto the deck, say "Hey, ducks!" in anything above a whisper, and they come bleating and quacking from a hundred yards away, like sheep with outboard motors strapped to their butts. I swear they displace wakes that threaten to wash out the bank!

Anyway, the winds blew, the leaves came sifting onto the water, and a portion of autumn went slipping down the river…apparently taking every BTU of available heat with it. But the ducks stayed. And the rains came.

AND IT'S STILL COLD!

SICK MAN BLOGGING…AGAIN!

Well, it has been a while since my last posting…simply because it has been a while since I was capable of remaining vertical for more than a few minutes. I began sniffing and snuffling last Saturday. A cold, I figured, and went to bed at my usual time. Colds are a rarity for me; I’ve had maybe a dozen during my entire life and they typically endured only a day or so. I awoke worse Sunday morning—aching, weak, still snuffling. As sore overall as if I’d been thoroughly beaten with a club. Since I’d had an annual flu shot, I figured maybe a mild case of some strain not covered by this season’s cocktail mix; combined with the aforementioned cold, a sort of drippy chaser. No other symptoms, though, including fever. I mostly stayed in bed except for forays to the kitchen for juice and tea and doses of acetaminophen. In spite of which, I kept going downhill as the day progressed. Monday and Tuesday was rock bottom; the absolute pits. The cold was still there. I was even weaker, and still ached in every muscle; yet still had no fever, congestion in lungs, sore throat, or other symptoms usual with the flu. Nevertheless, it felt like worst flu case ever. It was all I could do to sit up long enough to drink juice and swallow meds. I tried bringing the laptop to bed and managed about 5 minutes online a couple of times. Day and night became one long 48-hour ordeal. Most of the time I was so sick I couldn’t read. Luckily, I’d gone to the library Saturday and picked up several Books on CD titles; I’ve now listened to the first few disks of the new Elizabeth George mystery perhaps a dozen times each because I kept napping during various sections and had to replay the things to keep up with the plot. Today—meaning late this afternoon—I arose as if from the dead, a rather unlikely Lazarus in dire need of a shower. Showering so drained me that recovery required a brief return to bed rest. Later on, I tried an encore arising and ate chicken soup. That prompted a following nap on the couch. Just before sunset, I staggered onto the deck for a few minutes of chilly sunshine and some fresh air…and I’m still up, if barely. Hallelujah! Whatever malevolent nasty that appeared like a wraith and had it way with me over the past four days has apparently decided to seek fresh blood elsewhere. Now, with renewed faith the worst is behind me, I’m watching the western sky drain its last vestiges of crepuscular light. Clouds seen through skeletal sycamores across from the cottage are glowing salmon-pink against a background of oceanic blue. There are Canada geese in the air, flying fast and low as they head upstream toward their night roost on nearby ponds. A white-throated sparrow whistles soft vespers. I’m glad to be back.

FREEZE-OVER!

Night before last the prolonged bout of single-digit temperatures finally had it’s way with the river—at least the slower stretch upstream of the cottage—locking the surface water under a layer of ice which stretched all the way across. From bank to bank, not even a narrow channel of open water snaked down the long hole to mark the current’s main line. The view was unfamiliar—from one side to the other a flat, white cap of solid ice with a layer of snow on top. There was still open water in the cottage riffle, and open water downstream at least as far the bend. Ice shelves on both banks didn’t appear to have extended themselves, either. Which doubtless reflects the amount of current throughout this lower half-mile stretch as opposed to the half-mile of river visible above the cottage. The river’s freezing over hasn’t made any difference in terms of wildlife—at least so far as I can tell. The resident great blue heron is still fishing patiently in his favorite downstream riffle—a stark, gangly figure dressed in a gray overcoat and looking somewhat forlorn. Of course the water in the long, slow stretch upstream is waist-deep or a bit more at the center when the stream’s at its normal level. (I know because I often wade though it when fishing for smallmouth or rock bass.) Too deep for a heron, though great for the kingfishers which sit on overhanging sycamore limbs that offer a strategic perch from which to launch their dive-bomb attack on hapless minnows below. Otherwise the long stretch is more the province of true waterfowl—mallards, wood ducks, Canada geese. These tend to move around from place to place anyway, and since there’s ample open water downstream, I doubt they care whether this particular stretch is temporarily unavailable. I haven’t noticed any squirrels using this new “bridge” to cross over from the island side to the mainland, though I did see a handful of crows ambling about. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, poking, prodding, investigating; just congregating for a brief crow chat, smack in the middle the frozen, white plain—a location doubtless chosen because it showed them off to their contrasty best. The prediction is for above-freezing temperatures to replace the single digits for a couple of days. If so, the river upstream will once again prevail with open water. But for how long…only winter knows.

LOW-DOWN COLD

A cold morning here along the river. Cold of a sort that an uncle used to call "low-down cold." But the river was still open and moving. There was snow on the banks, ice in the current, shelf-ice extending out from the edges. Tendrils of fog hung above the surface. Water sliding through the riffle near the cottage looked sluggish and a pale green, reminding me of a frozen daiquiri I once had in the Floridita Bar, in Havana, when I took time out from a bonefishing junket to look up one of Hemingway’s old watering holes. However, the weather in Cuba that day had been decidedly warmer. Here, the thermometer stood at –13 degrees when I went outside to check the seed and suet feeders and scatter a big scoop of cracked corn on the ground for those who prefer to take their breakfast on the low side of the table. The official low hereabouts, according to the NWS and the airport a few miles away, which occurred about an hour before my dawn foray, was –14. Cold, though without wind—at least here, where we’re tucked below a couple of low hills (in truth, hardly high enough to be called hills, but I can’t think of a better term) and protected. Wind would have made it feel far worse. I’m always amazed how temperatures of zero and something in the minus range feels so noticeably different. This is true even if the spread is only a few degrees. A single inhaled breath tells you whether or not you’ve passed the line; so does an exposed patch of cheek, or the way snow squeaks underfoot. No doubt folks who live in Minnesota know a thing or two about real cold that we Buckeye’s can’t imagine. Deep, north-country cold is an entirely different environment than what we experience during an Ohio winter. At best, we receive only a taste; their winter cold is serious, another country entirely. For me, today, -13 is sufficient.

A BURR-R-R-R DAY…HOORAY!

When I went out to scatter cracked corn for the ground-feeding birds this morning, the thermometer stood at the 2-degree mark. Barely any temperature at all… Okay, just kidding. I do know better. Zero or a couple of degrees either way on the scale may not be much numerically, but in practicality it represents plenty of cold. Burr-r-r-r-r! Yesterday’s snow had all but played out, with only a few flakes still coming down. Occasionally a puffy glop of snow would dislodge from a nearby limb and fall softly earthward, light and all but suspended, like a dusting of diamonds. To give the weather oracles their due, their predicted 3-5 inches was closer to the 5-6 which I measured around the cottage, and disappointingly short of the foot I’d hoped for and thought might be possible given the what the snow front began. Wishful thinking gone awry again. The river continues to freeze—adding feet to the shoreline ice shelf along the pools and runs, constricting the narrow artery of open water. In the riffle off the front of the cottage, some of the slower water spaces between the rocks are freezing up, which slows the water in ever larger spaces nearby until any open surface water finally disappears beneath a white-ice cap. That won’t happen for another day or two, though if this serious cold persists, it will occur sooner rather than later. This afternoon’s wind-chill is predicted to be minus-25, though the wind isn’t doing much yet. We’re actually somewhat protected here along the river, tucked below low hills to the west and east. Could be we’ll not feel the full force of this deep freeze wind-chill. A good day to hunker by the fire, grill a steak, sip some tea, read a book. Isn’t a snowy winter day grand!