January 4: Warm and Comfortable, Ten New Inches, New Cartoon

Wilbur's new home was in the lower part of the barn, directly underneath the cows.  Mr. Zuckerman knew that a manure pile was a good place to keep a young pig.  Pigs need warmth, and it was warm and comfortable down there in the barn cellar on the south side.

Yes, for the second day in a row, I'm focusing on a passage about Mr. Zuckerman's barn.  There's something about early January in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that makes me a sucker for writing about a warm, comfortable place, even if it's full of cow shit.


I woke up this morning to about ten new inches of snow in my front yard.  That, coupled with the 50-mile-per-hour wind gusts overnight, made for a slow start to the day.  Lots of shoveling and digging out.  It was one of those times when I questioned why I choose to live in the U. P.

Tomorrow, some seriously cold weather is supposed to be descending on my little corner of the world.  I'm talking 50-below-zero wind chills.  A couple of school districts have already cancelled classes for Monday.  If the weather forecasts are accurate, I'm fulling expecting my kids' Christmas break to be extended by a day.

I remember, as a kid, what a joy it was to get an extra day of holiday vacation due to inclement weather.  In fact, I remember one year, when I was an undergraduate in college, a blizzard blew in the Sunday before the start of the winter semester.  That little storm gave me an additional two days of rest and relaxation.  (I think I played a lot of Yahtzee with my brothers and sisters.)

While I'm happy to have 2013 behind me, I'm not as eager to let go of Christmas.  I like sitting in my living room in the glow of the Christmas tree, typing my blog post.  It's so old-fashioned and heartwarming.  Well, not the blogging part, but you know what I mean.  It's comforting.  Safe.  Christmas doesn't change.  It just gets more expensive.

So, I'm being a little nostalgic tonight.  I even have a little Bing Crosby playing on AccuRadio.  Can't beat "White Christmas" for stirring up some chestnut roasting spirit.

I'm working on a new poem, but it didn't quite gel today.  Hopefully, I'll have better success tomorrow.  It's for a new book I'm working on.  I'll talk more about that later.

Before Saint Marty goes all George Bailey on your asses, he's going to sign off.

Confessions of Saint Marty