This Tree

“I read the news today, oh boy” (McCartney/Lennon)

Every morning while we sit drinking our coffee, W and I trade interesting or funny or unbelievable crap we read about on our different news feeds.  Sometimes it’s really entertaining tuning in to the next instalment of the current gong show going on in our neighbouring country.  Sometimes it’s downright frightening.  I’m afraid that all the attention, no matter how negative, simply feeds the beast.  I’m afraid we all might soon be buried alive in alternative facts (a new and improved name for bullshit). I’m afraid there might be some devious method to their madness, piling it on so high and so deep that we lose the will to claw our way out from underneath it.

So in the interests of not feeding the beast (while at the same time not turning my back on him either) here is a slide show of our wintry ice-foggy  backyard.

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I snuck in a couple of shots of my bad hair day to show you how I am becoming one with nature.  By resembling a half dead tree.  Or something way more poetic than that.  This awesome big old tree is the same one in which my sisters grandson discovered an alligator nest last fall.  We had no idea it was harbouring such an amazing thing. Around Christmas time this same grandson explained to his grandma how he could recognize Frosty from the other snowmen by the brown hammer in his mouth. For sure this boy is going places.

I hope gazing at this tree with its magnificent icy alligator nest sheltering branches towering above the other frozen things in our yard on this cold grey January Monday gives you a brief respite from whatever doom and gloom crap is taking up valuable space in your brain.

If not, here’s something completely different.  Not all news is bad.

Family of boy in Justin Trudeau town hall photo to name baby after prime minister

Under The Bed

(http://sha-1.deviantart.com/art/Under-the-bed-II-154800409)

A comprehensive (because I like adjectives) list of things I believed were under my bed during my early childhood.

1. Alligators (this was long before Mercer Mayer wrote a book about it)
2. Bad men wearing masks, ready to grab the ankles of children foolish enough to forget to take a flying leap halfway across the bedroom after waking up in the morning.  These same men were never around at bedtime.   It was just the mornings you had to worry about.  So I assume they only worked the day shift.
3. Anything that mysteriously went missing, including socks, siblings and money.
4. Dust Bunnies the size of tumbleweeds. (No child worries about that – that’s more    a present day thing). Scratch number four.

I know, it’s not a very long list.  I advanced fairly quickly to scary things lurking in closets and on the roof.

Under the bed became a great place for shoving things when you needed to tidy up in a hurry.  So I guess it got too crowded under there and the alligators and the masked men were forced to move on.