Category: Reflections

A dusting of snow pleasantly surprised me this morning. On closer inspection, it was more a dusting of tiny hail pellets than snow.

But the sun shines so bright today, the dusting of snow won’t last long. It would be a perfect day for celebrating Lupercalia, the ancient Roman festival on February 15. Over time, Lupercalia became Valentine’s Day.

Visiting ancient Rome on Lupercalia would have been exciting. It was a festival of sacrificing animals and performing rituals to ensure health and fertility. I asked ChatGPT what these rituals were. It told me:

The exact details of the festival varied over time. But it typically involved several rituals, including:

• Animal sacrifice: During Lupercalia Romans sacrificed one or more animals. Usually goats and dogs. They believed these animals represented fertility and purification.
• Feasting: After the animal sacrifice, Romans held a feast to honor the gods and promote social bonding among the community.
• Ritual cleansing: Participants in Lupercalia engaged in ritual cleansing. This typically involved the use of water or milk to purify the body and promote fertility.
• Bloodletting: Some accounts suggest that Lupercalia also involved bloodletting. Men cut their foreheads and offered drops of blood to the gods.
• Fertility rituals: The most famous fertility ritual associated with Lupercalia involved the running of the Luperci. A group of young men dressed in goat skins ran through the streets of Rome. As they ran, the Luperci struck women with strips of goat hide. They believed this promoted fertility and eased childbirth.

Imagine the crowds of tourists flocking to Rome today if Romans still celebrated Lupercalia.

On a cold morning, hot embers in the wood stove make it easy to get a fire going.

And Houseflies?

With all that animal sacrifice and bloodletting, houseflies in Rome surely feasted too. But until a few days ago, I had no idea houseflies can miraculously turn pig manure into compost in just seven days.

I saw an article on Japanese news about a researcher in southern Japan, Kushima Mitsutaka. For twenty years he has been working on using houseflies to quickly turn pig manure into compost.

The big obstacle to overcome is that houseflies are very sensitive creatures. Who knew? They can’t stand overcrowding. But to turn tons of pig manure into compost, you need millions of housefly larvae.

So Mr. Kushima kept breeding houseflies over and over, picking less sensitive houseflies with each generation. 1,500 generations later he has houseflies that don’t mind overcrowding. And he is now building a facility to quickly convert pig manure by the ton into compost.

The process involves spreading housefly eggs over a layer of pig manure. The eggs hatch. The larvae munch through the pig manure. Within a week they turn it into soft compost which smells like earth. And the next part is amazing. Fly larvae like to climb to the highest point possible to pupate and turn into houseflies. So the trays used to hold the pig manure are titled. The larvae crawl to the sides of the trays and fall off into containers. The containers fill with millions of larvae. The pig manure turned into compost is free of fly larvae and bagged. The larvae are processed to become fish and chick feed.

What is coincidental, is that the idea of using houseflies to turn pig manure into compost originated back in the early days of the Soviet space program. They worked with houseflies to use their larvae to process human waste in space. Mr. Kushima imported these flies to start his breeding program.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave Mr. Kushima’s business a boost. Because of the invasion, fertilizer prices are sky high. So turning pig manure quickly into compost can provide lots of fertilizer.

“Will they fly?” I was thinking that this morning when I looked out and saw the bright sunshine.

This morning started out very spring like. Is it still winter? Is it over? Will he have nothing but spring weather from here on out?

Lummi Island sure had a thick cloud cap this morning when I went on my delivery route. At many angles, the islands off the coast just look like mountains not far away.

A few days ago when I went out in the morning and counted the ducks, there were 9 ducks, not the expected 8. Swimming among the domesticated ducks was a Mallard.

He’s been with the flock of ducks ever since, swimming with them, and coming up onto the bank to feed too. We‘ve even caught him cavorting with the hens.

Which makes me wonder, if the hens hatch ducklings and he is their father, will the ducklings fly away when they grow up? He is smaller than the other ducks and since he flew in, I’m sure he can fly away easily. But what about the cross between him and the domestic ducks? What will they be like?

The last week of 2021 seems like an Arctic vacation. Snow started falling Christmas Eve. The cold that followed drove morning lows down to 7ºF, -14ºC. We haven’t seen such cold weather or so much snow in years.

The pump in the pond kept it from freezing over. Which gave the ducks a safe place to swim about. If the pond freezes over, a hungry coyote or raccoon could get to them easily.

Under a blue sky the cherry tree looks like it is in full bloom.

The dogs love the snow. It’s been so cold that the snow is powdery soft. Shoveling it off the driveway is a breeze. I can’t go running in this snow so spending an hour or two shoveling snow is a relaxing alternative.

I dreaded the forecast of the deep snow and subfreezing days. Daffodils had started to shoot. I was sure the deep freeze would destroy them. But buried under a foot of snow, I think they may survive. The week has seemed like a vacation to the far north without the hassles of snaking through security lines at airports or worrying about canceled flights. The coming warmer days and rain will soon make this week a fond memory.

A big surprise yesterday was finding daffodil shoots. It’s only December and they are already sprouting. One even shows a flower bud. All I can say is this was poor planning on the part of the daffodils. The forecast is for icy cold Canadian air to come pouring down the Fraser River Canyon and encase us in snow and ice for a week.

The forecast on the weather app I use on my phone changes by the hour. Earlier this morning it was light rain after midnight tonight followed by snow at 4 am, then rain again at 6, and snow at 10 am. Now it is snow at midnight, mostly clouding at 4 am, light snow at 6 am, snow at 8 am, and mostly cloudy at 8 pm. Whatever happens, it sounds like a good day to stay home.

The daffodils give me a glimmer of hope that they know something the weather forecasters don’t. But if the snow starts piling up, my plan is to cover the daffodil shoots in a thick blanket of snow so they survive the cold spell.

The chickens aren’t making any special precautions for the upcoming arctic blast. They blissfully leave it up to me to make sure their water doesn’t freeze and give them something they can eat when the ground freezes as hard as glass.

There needs to be a word that describes bare trees lit up by winter suns when the skies are dark and gloomy. The phenomenon doesn’t last long. When it does it’s like the trees are awake, yelling and screaming. Sun enflamed winter woods? Sun gilded bare trees? Sun sticks?

The solstice this year happened at a convenient time for me, 7:59 a.m., pretty much at sunrise. It’s odd that such a momentous event happens so quietly. You can sit as still as you want, but you can’t feel the earth so much as shiver when it passes that line in its orbit when everything changes.

For me, it’s the beginning of a new year. The days will get longer now. Spring is coming. Snow is happy. I’d love to get inside a duck’s head. Are they really as happy as they seem? I’m sure there is some profound wisdom they could share. The secret to happiness perhaps?

The low sun at winter illuminates the bare trees with gold this time of year. Though the Bald Eagle at the top of the fir tree next to the cottonwoods has me concerned. Bald Eagles often perch there, eying the ducks, watching the chickens.

Yesterday Mount Baker was iridescent. Each time I go to Anacortes to deliver tofu to the Anacortes Food Co-op, I check to see how Mount Baker is. Often it’s hidden by the clouds. But when the sun is out and the sky is cobalt blue, it is there, radiating peace.

I’ve been making tofu for twenty years or more. And yet these last few weeks seem like I’ve just learned how to make it. Maybe I’ll feel that way ten years from now. “Oh, back in 2021, I had no idea what I was doing.” You would think that after decades of making something so simple, that there would be nothing more to learn, but there always is. One is forever just learning how to do things you’ve been doing your whole life.

It’s the time of year to enjoy these frosty mornings. They won’t last forever. One day I’ll wake up and there’ll be no more frost, just the warmth of spring, and I’ll have to wait half a year or more to see blades of grass brushed with frost.

There is a forecast of snow for Christmas Day, two to five inches. Though yesterday’s forecast of more snow on Monday of seven to ten inches is gone. Just another inch or two on Sunday and cold, below freezing, sunny days for Monday and Tuesday.

The first snow of the season fell Thursday morning. For an hour big, wet flakes drifted down. They were comforting to watch as I made tofu that morning.

By early afternoon, the snow around our place was gone save for a few bits here and there. But just a few miles north the countryside stayed white all day.

If you need to check if you are still alive or not, walk barefoot in the snow. You’ll know you are very much alive if you do that.

The swans have settled into a winter of steady grazing. The nice thing about being a swan is that you can go just about anywhere you want without people becoming upset. “Private property – keep out” signs mean nothing to a swan.

This certainly is the season of peak bleakness here. It’s dark when I get up. Dark before supper. The leaves have all fallen, leaving a forest of standing skeletons. The sun rarely breaks through the clouds these days.

But what about the owls who come out at night? Is this the happiest time of the year for them? So many more hours of hunting for them. At the end of June are they despondent at the long days, wondering if darkness will ever return? Do they have rituals they perform to their gods to bring back the night? Maybe that is what all their hooting is about in the summertime.

All the rain and wet is no problem for the ducks. This is a happy time of the year for them too. Though when it comes to ducks on a pond, when are they not happy? I’ve noticed that ducks are somewhat nocturnal. They must have good night vision. They are often active at night.

In fourteen days, on Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 7:59 am Pacific Standard Time, 6:59 am Pacific Day Light Savings Time, right about when I am having my morning coffee, it all changes and the light begins to return.

In ancient times, many wondered if spring would return. People danced, they prayed, they burnt offerings, hoping that the gods would take away the darkness. We don’t worry about those things anymore. We can count down to the millisecond when the earth passes that spot in its orbit around the sun where the days in the northern hemisphere start to lengthen. It will happen no matter what we do, gods or no gods. There is nothing for us to do but relax and enjoy that millisecond.