O What A Beautiful Morning

7:35

Cardinal Outside Kitchen Window

I got up a little later than usual, just before 7:00 and our bedroom was bathed in orange light, unusual as it's usually dark when I get up.  I came down and rosy finger dawn lit the eastern sky and I was surprised at how far south the south rises as it nears the winter solstice.  It was 27 when I got up, 58 just two days ago, and when I went outside, to drive over to Bemus for breakfast, my windshield was solid ice, about as thick as I have ever seen it.

Everyone was at breakfast except for Stan.  The usual talk though Joe Johnson had been deer hunting in PA for three days; it sounds more like an excuse to go off in the woods and drink and eat and shoot the breeze than serious hunting.  Sounds good actually.  They are not that crazy about getting a deer, just enjoy being in the woods for a couple hours a day, then back for a heavy breakfast/lunch, then dinner, and evening of sipping Bushmills whiskey.  They stay in a 150 year old log house on a friend's property, set on the top of a mountain.

Evie's off to get her hair done and do some errands and I will stay home and hold the fort.  I think I can handle it.  I will finish my book, OLIVE KITTERIDGE, which I have grown to really love.  At first,  I was a bit put off by Olive's brusqueness but as the book moves along, and you learn more about her and the townspeople, you begin to empathize with her, Henry, and people in general.  More later.  I think I might kayak a bit before it gets too windy.  I want to hike in the woods but the deer hunters are still out and the guys talked about an incident recently in the area where a hunter fired at a deer on his property and the bullet hit a school bus, missing the driver and children by a few inches.  I guess the bullets from a rifle travel well over a mile if not two if high powered. Scary.