winter

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Spell a Day – Feb 17th 2016

Today, Gentle Readers, is about our furry friends and the cold winter months. Being the species obvious connection to the occult, today is geared more towards feral felines. Cats for the unknowing. I want to use this moment to speak about all animals in our care and maybe ones that are not in our care at all. The winter months can be brutal for animals in the wild, or domesticated ones kept outside at times. Be a responsible pet owner and make sure that your pets have adequate protection from the elements. This could mean a dog house with a heat lamp in extreme cold, or just find a way to keep the animal inside.

My larger dog, a lab mutt animal named Moose (more fitting than his original name of Yoda), is an odd duck at times. We had a couple of negative double digit wind chills in a row. I was home these days so other than for them to go to the bathroom I was keeping both dogs inside. Don’t tell my wife I was worried about the dogs, I have a rep to protect that the Moose and I are not friends.

Anyway, I let him out to go to the bathroom because he’s dancing around the house like a kid holding in their pee. Now that he is a few years old I don’t worry too much about him running off, especially when it is cold outside. So I close the back screen door and go into the kitchen to make myself something to drink. A couple minutes later I go to the door, expecting him to be waiting to come inside. Nope. He is in the outside kennel, just standing there waiting for me to close the gate.

I am dumbfounded at this moment. It is very cold, the wind is whistling through the trees, and this numbskull wants to hang out in the kennel. I don’t even have my shoes on so I am not going out there to close the gate so I just leave him out there. I left him there and went back to catching up on one of my DVR’d shows for about an hour. I then went to the back door, he is still sitting in the kennel like it is 80 degrees out. I call him and he looks at me like I am the crazy one. Finally after a little coaxing he decides coming back inside is the best option.

Sometimes I am not sure if he is right in the head, but he is loyal. This is a picture of him and his older sister Jedi. Yes. Their names are Jedi and Yoda. This is what happens when you let your Star Wars obsessed son name the pets in the house. We at one time had a hamster named Vader as well. Yes, as in Darth Vader. It was even all black, hence where it got its name from. Vader kept using the Force to break out of his cage. One time, we didn’t find him. I prefer to call these two, Moose and Squirrel.
mooseandsquirrelI hope everyone has a safe rest of winter out there and don’t forget to keep an eye on your pets. Until next time Gentle Readers.

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Spell a Day – Jan 6th 2016

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Death comes for us all they say and Persephone, from Greek Mythology, knows that all too well. When Hades saw her beauty, he had to possess her all for his own. Her mother, distraught, plunged the planet into winter during the time that Persephone was in the underworld. Thankfully Persephone is able to return in the spring so that we can escape the winter of Demeter’s depression. Stories say Zeus gave his brother permission to kidnap Persephone. The story of Persephone is one of transition and change. Sometimes we must face our own “winter” in order to come into the light and warmth of new growth that is the next spring.

The focus of the day is to recognize the necessity for death in our lives. This may not be an actual death of a person/plant/animal, but the death of an ideal we held dear. Perhaps it is the death of a habit we know is no good for us. The point is, that once you recognize that death itself isn’t evil, but necessary to this existence we call life, then you can learn and grow with the experience. Without death, there is no rebirth, either of the planet or of our own spirit.

Gentle readers, accept when it is time for death to take something from your lives. I am certainly not saying to deny the grieving process. I am saying that in your grief, recognize the good left behind, and perhaps the good that is waiting in the wings when your “spring” finally comes back around.

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Poem – Little Bird, Park Bench

Little Bird, Park Bench

Little bird park bench
Enjoying a warm spring day
I bid you Welcome

Glad to see you back
Glad to hear your song
What winter did lack
For spring we all long

Now it’s here to stay
Little bird hopping about
Keep the cold at bay

A song so pure and sweet
Wrapped in the warmer day
To me it is such a treat
Little bird, don’t fly away

Like time you are fleeting
So fill the air with your tweeting
Then off you go to some other place
Where other ears your song can grace

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Snow Day

Waking up to snow
On this late March Wednesday morn
Makes me wish for Spring

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The great thaw had come
There was to be no more snow
But it’s here once more

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In cold December
Or even January
We love snowy days

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But now it is March
And the snow is getting old
Please Mother Nature

Bring warmer weather
Campfires, cookouts, swimming holes
It’s all that we want