Fluffball Thrush

Day 71: The Thrush is back...the Thrush are back...Thrushes are back...dang it anyway...more than one Thrush is back, and they are all puffed up to maximize the amount of air trapped by their feathers, the better to insulate them against the cold. While the principle seems sound, I keep thinking about the reason Pacfic Northwest backpackers choose synthetic-filled sleeping bags: down is worthless if it gets wet, and right now the Thrush is (are) soaked through and through with freezing rain. Watching them run out from the protection of the shrubs to grab seed, only to dart straight back in again sends the train of my thoughts along tracks cut through the Olympics, the Mt. Margaret backcountry north of Mt. St. Helens, and the Northern Loop in Mount Rainier National Park. Oh, how miserable I was, wet to the bone despite good raingear! I can sympathize with the Thrush who only leaves the safety of his natural "tent" for the most urgent of reasons, if rather different from those which compelled me into the storm on those occasions. At least I could take my meals inside.

Teddy Bear Brights Afghan

Day 131: I am not enjoying being penned in the house by weather, but at least I'm getting projects done. It's wet-chilly, the kind of clammy cold which I am convinced is under proprietary license to western Washington; a cold which goes through all your layers, Goretex, microfiber fleece, wool, polypro, epidermis, dermis, bones. It is not a cold which invites you to hike. A warming pace generates perspiration which in turn chills down without evaporating, demanding that you hike faster and therefore perspire more heavily, and consequently chill down more quickly as your clothing becomes soaked with sweat. It is a no-win cold, an unrelenting, oppressing, weighty cold, a burden not even coffee and chicken soup can lighten. The thermometer (a brazen liar!) reports 40 degrees. It feels like 20, a wet, soggy, sodden, soaking, pervasive 20, but it doesn't freeze. Freezing would be a kindness it would never willingly convey. I don't like stepping out in it even just to fill the bird feeders, so I stay indoors and keep my hands busy with yarn while my thoughts search out lichens in dimly-recalled warmth.