The Dog Chronicles: Andie Sunday 12/6/2015

RAIN! What wonderful weather! It’s dark at mid day, heavy with fog, and raining. For we who have lived in long term drought, a greater Christmas blessing cannot be imagined, at least for the time being, because we know from experience that El-nino creates havoc on our dried hillsides and parched rivers. All those elegant villas built on stilts to capture the glorious views of wild-fire burnt-out hills and valleys become million dollar toboggans as liquefaction unfolds it cautionary tale to civic planners.

For the time being, Andie and I rejoice in the moments as a noble grief would hope and banish future shock to the humbug world. Boy, is it ever humbug out there. I saw one clip of a Black Friday scene in a nearby maul mall, where a mother who garnered her five children to hold on to a particular electronic sale item, witnessed a big grown man knock down one of the little boys and stole his mother’s hoarded treasure.  Americans, terrorists, guns, mayhem, End Times, and so on will not deter Andie and I from making the neighborhood solstice angel on our fence for the neighbors. The solstice angel has been going strong since we moved back eight years ago from the farm in Bennington Vermont.

The tradition began by making large, vertical swags to hang from the porch ceiling on each side of the kitchen entrance:

What fun it was in those days to bundle up and  head out into the snow and collect ‘stuff’ for the decorations: pine bows, pine cones, corn stalks and winter berries in red or orange from the wild vines that took over the old apple orchard, now lost in the encroaching jungle that decades of neglect and disuse enjoined with the ever  changing terra-forming that comes of rural lifestyles assimilated by modern times. Over  the summer we collected and dried flowers to hang in the great room to add to the swags. The extra bonus of the winter berries was the delightful perfume they release when used inside for decoration.

The fence angel is built from garden scraps much like the swags were in Vermont and is appreciated by our neighbors. One neighbor particularly likes it much better than the OCCUPY 1st Street sign that once hung on the fence. It takes several hours to collect and put together, because I don’t move very quickly these days. Andie, however does, and fully participated. I used one of those portable tether ‘thingies’ so she could stay close. She did indeed, making a nest among the dried roses, rather than the soft green towel I put out for her. This is the look I often got from her:

The angel will be the only holiday decoration this year, somehow much has been lost of that spirit in the events of the past year or so. That’s not a sad thing, just a harmonious understanding and knowing of a completed loss. There is some joy in that for acceptation brings a sense of future and an embrace of new understandings. It helps to be positive while creating a fence angel, enjoying Andie’s advice and drinking a hot mug of spiced cider. BTW, The first angel was said by Trace to bare a facsimile to Mothra. We will leave it to you gentle reader to decide the nomenclature of our holiday creation.