THE PROGRESS OF WINTER

Actually, in West Central Alabama winter seems to just sit there rather than progress. Oh, we have variation. Colder or warmer. Windier or calmer. Wetter or drier. There's not the constant change that we get during the other seasons. I like it anyway.


It is Christmas Day afternoon. I've had a pleasant day in Tuscaloosa: cold shrimp lunch at my sister's, a visit to a cousin in Hospice, afternoon showing of Into the Woods. I drove home in bright late afternoon sunlight, the sky gradually darkening during those last miles.

And once I was home, I decided to get a few shots of the Christmas afternoon sunset:

While I was out, I checked the buds on the purple dawn camellia bush just outside my office. Sometimes I have blooms as early as Thanksgiving, but the early hard freezes this year delayed them. Perhaps in another week I'll have blooms.

Tomorrow I'll have to check the Christmas narcissus: their blooming too was delayed a bit this year. If they're open, I can call them Boxing Day narcissus.

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I loved the look of the sky over Sawyerville on the afternoon of the day after Christmas!

I figured that with all those clouds we'd have a nice sunset that afternoon as well, and I was right!

On December 30 my first really nice purple dawn! Many years I the past I had camellias on the table for Thanksgiving. This year our two hard freezes in November kept that from happening. I had thought that after our storms and warm rains the first weekend in the new year I would see lots more blooms on the bush, There are lots of buds with touches of red showing, but no major bursting into bloom. The dip down to 16 degrees threatened for Thursday morning will probably keep those buds from opening. They'll turn brown and fall all.

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On Saturday January 5, a few Christmas narcissus were in bloom. New Year's narcissus this year. (I could have cropped the photographer's shadow, but I sort of like it. You could really build a good SciFi alien out of the way it looks.)



That was a beautiful sunny day after a period of gray skies and dampness. (Not that they aren't beautiful too, in their own way.) That evergreen privet lit up by the afternoon son down the country road makes it look almost springlike. Trust me, it's not!

January 8. The coldest morning so far this year. Yesterday we were threatened with a low of 15 degrees. At 7:15 it was 9 degrees on my patio, 44 degrees in my living room. Had to pile more cover on top of the electric blanket last night. But (and) last evening we did have a lovely sunset:

Nearly the end of January. The 27th, to be precise, and the Northeast is being battered by snow and days of severe chill predicted. But here in Sawyerville the temperature has been in the low 60s with a bright blue sky.



On the whole January has looked just like the pictures already shown above.  Rains, cloudy days, sunny skies, sunsets. The occasional purple dawn camellia. But the weather has been warmer these last days with no hard freezes in some time, and now the purple dawn is starting to act like it is supposed to.

There are a lot of buds still unopened, and if the couple of mornings later in the week when we are supposed to have a very mild and brief dip down to barely freezing don't get them, maybe in a week the bush will be filled with red. This bush is on the east side of the house and is protected to some degree from the west wind, and it does get the morning sun.

The trees that are not evergreen are still bare, and if you're like me you will like their tracery against the sky.

That house beyond the southeast corner of my pasture can barely be seen when the trees in the woods have their summer foliage.

It has not been a particularly hard winter here, even though a couple of freezes did set the camellia back a bit.  Certainly not the kind of winter serious winter weather experienced by some of my friends in the northeastern and north central states.


And then there's this tiny white hyacinth, the first one of its kind to peak out of the ground. Surely this may be a sign that before long spring will indeed come again. And possibly soon.

Here it is February 6, 2015. A bright and sunny day in Sawyerville.  A pleasant 65 degrees outside, but still a bit of heat feels nice inside. No sign of leaves on the hardwoods down in the pasture yet. But note that nandina on the left side of the picture: for Christmas the berries were red and the foliage bright green. The berries remain red, but the foliage is now turning a reddish brown.

I started this SEASONS section just about a year ago with the intention of following the yard and surroundings for a full year, assuming that I lived that long. Well, I did.

And now I can wrap things up. I was waiting for one specific sign, and look:

Just today the yellow crocus have started to bloom! They weren't there yesterday, for I looked when I put out bird seed. If memory serves, they were just a tiny bit later than this last February, but still this blooming will give me a stop point.

And this is a good day to bring this website to an end. Just before lunch I uploaded to Amazon's CreateSpace what I hope to be the final interior text of my new book, a collection of essays that I think turned out slightly better than I thought it would. Some of those essays had their beginning in posts on this site and the accompanying blogs. Somehow working on this website has motivated me to write more, and since this site is now almost full to the allowed brim, most future writings are likely to be published only in book form, both paper copy and electronic format.

Here's what the front cover will look like. The bricks on the left wrap around the spine to the rear cover, and book description and author bio appear in a box there with the bricks showing through, like on the front cover. I am hoping that in the next few days I can hit the PUBLISH button and it will be available.

This has been fun to do, as was The Turbervilles of Greensboro, Alabama, my short family memoir that I got up and running about three weeks ago. I've already mailed copies to all of my first and second cousins on that side of the family. I really wrote it for them, and for myself, of course.

I will be returning to this site from time to time, for I do want to go over the writing again and make some corrections that I know are needed. There are a few more photos I'd like to post, in some cases to replace ones already there.  Eventually I may take down the blogs, as the posts there fall farther and farther behind. As I mentioned, the site itself is almost full. I may have to sacrifice blogs for photos and emendations.

How long have I been working on this site? About 18 months, now that I think back. It has been fun to do, although there have been moments of frustration. It has prompted me to write again. It has prompted me to reflect. It has prompted me to look at my surroundings with fresher eyes. It has kept me off the streets and out of mischief. I guess all of that is worth something. Certainly for me it has been worth it.

I am grateful for any of you who have checked in from time to time. I hope you will return to it occasionally in the future.

To close, let me give you one more bouquet of yellow crocus: