Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

-in another sign of my mis-spent youth, I amused J by knowing all the words to the first verse of "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie". (and then annoyed myself by not remembering the second verse past the first line, the one that goes "bark us all bow-wows of folly")

- we did have a White Christmas. It's been warming up ever since, and actually didn't drop below freezing last night, so the snow is mostly gone. When it was bitter cold and snow covered, the birds were eating a reasonable amount of food, but now that the snow is mostly gone, they're back to gleaning the fields.

- Xmas Eve service was decent. The church is still shrinking, both officially and in terms of how many people are on the rolls who just don't ever attend. I wish the Conference would decide on a style of pastor to send us -- we've had three pastors in the last five years, and they've all been radically different in style and/or theology. There's hardly any new people in the church, and the last two pastors (and COVID) have done a pretty good job of thinning out the people who aren't truly committed to the church. I hear that there will be some fairly fraught Council meetings in the new year, and I'm so very glad that I'm not going to be a part of that.

- the MRI that was scheduled for 3 Dec was cancelled on 30 Nov because the insurance co wanted an Xray first. So I got the Xray, but they'd already declined the MRI. My doc was hoping to get a peer-review appeal for the MRI sometime this week, but I haven't heard from her *or* the imaging clinic yet. I did get a referral to a specialty clinic, and have scheduled an appointment for March.

Yanno, I haven't started the Christmas letter yet. I should do that if I'm going to get the cards in the mail by Orthodox Christmas (Jan 6).

Christmas was very quiet here. Mum sent us a gift basket of holiday breakfast (add buttermilk and breakfast meat of choice) and musical dominoes -- not the kind that make music (sigh), but the pips are musical notations. (yes, my mother is still sending me educational toys. LOL) J got me a nice bottle of bourbon. I didn't get him anything, because he has no self-control, and every time I thought "ooh, I could get that", it'd show up in a box from Amazon within a couple of weeks.

The Bell Choir rang chimes at church on Christmas Eve. Turns out that the new pastor was correct, and we only needed one service. If J and I had stayed, we would have been the only ones seated in the overflow building. We decided that we could sit in the same room at home much more comfortably.... so we put the chimes away, dealt with the few other things we could without disrupting the service, and came home. There were a number of reasons for that, not just the lack of seating -- Pastor was changing things in the program 15 minutes before it started, the sound tech in the overflow space would have bothered J all service, it looked like a particularly sappy/twee program, and communion does not belong on Christmas Eve in a protestant church. Especially with overflow in a second building -- I have no idea how they'd have handled that. (not my circus, not my monkeys.)

I was song leader today, and that was easy. Other than the fact that I wound up helping after service with many of the things that need to be done then - moving poinsettias, picking up bulletins, etc. To be fair, I don't really mind doing little things like that especially on days when a lot of the regulars aren't in attendance. There were no carols/christmas songs, but that's because the pastor is on vacation and we had a lay speaker who picked old reliable hymns. I *think* that the pastor would have picked more seasonal hymns, but she's new, so I don't really know.

Just before I left for church, I asked J to feed the cats, as the cat bowls were nearly 'people empty'. I got home from church 90 minutes later, and he'd not done it. So I did, and the cats nearly ran me over getting to the freshly filled food bowls. (He went off to the gym, because they close at 1 on weekends. He's turned into that annoying guy who is just finishing his workout as they're trying to lock up the place.)

Yesterday (Sunday) was the Cemetery Walk at church -- the cemetery associated with the church has graves in it from the 1830s, and the church historical society writes skits involving some of the people there (it's somewhat interesting to get comments on an early 1900's character from people who actually knew her...). In conjunction with that, the service was "Old Fashion". I was song leader, and the first note I got asked only if I could wear old-fashioned cloths(sic), I was soooo tempted to wear the grey plaid 1953 dress (Mum bought it off the rack), but then I realised that I didn't have the proper undergarments for it. The last time I wore it (25 years ago!) it was still a bit big for me, and the lack of a girdle wasn't a problem. Now, I need something under it. Instead, I added some trim to last year's 1900s jacket, "de-steampunked" the skirt, and found the straw boater. There are now notes on the jacket and blouse for things I need to fix before next year.

I fixed the leaks in the rill -- no holes in the liner, just water finding 'down' where J hadn't expected it. I also planted strawberries, including the pair of runners that were 'doing a runner' and escaping from the old strawberry bed. That was Friday, and yesterday there were deer tracks through the new bed -- they hadn't stopped to nibble anything, but there were hoof prints!

There are many birds bathing in the birdbath and the pools in the rill -- I refill the birdbath twice a day, and the rocks next to the bathing pools in the rill are usually splashed. Crows and jays fling a lot of water around. :)

Anna-cat was parading around with a mouse in her mouth late Saturday evening, and Sunday we found where she had left it -- under the kitchen table, where it would be safe. (Ji doesn't eat stuff that he doesn't catch). DB took it out to the pyre, aka the brush pile. The pyre already has a bunch of dead bird & mice in it, so what's one more?