And seven days without a walk, or writing a post, makes one weaker.

It also breaks one’s New Year’s resolutions … just sayin’.

It has been one week today since I’ve taken a walk or written a post. So much for positive statements uttered on the first of the new year.

Of course, like many other parts of the U.S., the weather here has been ultra-lousy. But, if I was really the avid walker I claim to be, then I’d bundle up and march boldly into the -25 wind chill. Well … tomorrow for sure.

But what about the writing? It seems my brain has become numb from all the cold and wittiness just flew out the window … no, make that the door – the window wasn’t open.

Last year I did a post in February called “The Trudge Report” which detailed the incessant Winter routine. Every day I would suit up, boot up and go outside to run the car and check for icicles, ice dams and any clogs in the furnace pipe. Then I’d run back into the house again. That was the daily agenda for weeks.

Today there was snow to contend with as well. The first really big snow event of the year. It was pretty and picturesque as it was early enough to still be pristine, having not been shoveled or blown out of the way like the annoyance that it is.
 
I glanced at Marge’s big ol’ thermometer on her deck to verify it was the same measly temperature that I’d just heard on the radio, when just then a flock of sparrows spied the fresh seeds in her feeder and dive-bombed in front of the thermometer … that was okay because whatever the numbers said – it was bone-chilling cold.

I scurried around to the front yard, to the garage, and impatiently tried to twist the key into the lock to raise the door, a feat that was difficult to accomplish with polar fleece mitts on my hands. Finally, I got it open, and cast the mitts aside onto the trunk of the car while I turned the engine over … it started right up. Good deal. Then I waited on the exhaust fumes to clear before shutting the garage door – so it was time to check out what was going on in the neighborhood.

The street was silent. Many of the residents are retired, and the other half – the worker bees, had already brushed off their cars and headed out to deal with the three-inch snowfall and a longer-than-usual trek to work.

The brutal breeze was creating quite a commotion as it stirred the huge wind chimes that hang on the porch of the house kitty-corner from mine. Those wind chimes were so loud they reminded me of Hop Sing clanging on the triangle dinner bell to call Pa Cartwright and his boys back to the Ponderosa for dinner.

As I stood there I knew there was something amiss. It was the tweets of the birds that used to cluster together for warmth in Marge’s two pear trees. The leaves on those trees never dropped ‘til mid-Winter and alot of birds made their home there all year around. No matter how cold or warm the morning was, sunshine or not, an ever-present glorious song would be erupting from nearly every branch of those two pear trees.

But, alas – the windstorm on November 24th split one tree and the City came to chop them both down as they were diseased and unstable.

So … no trees and no birds anymore. Just two empty holes are all that remains, and it made for a very barren look now that Winter has finally made its presence known.

“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.” ~ Victor Hugo