Winter dreary

I don't mean to borrow too heavily from Garrison Keilor, but it has been a quiet month around here and I haven't found the time or inclination to write much during the month. December is rather a busy month with birthdays and Christmas and the end of the year. It, perhaps, shouldn't be that surprising that the desire to write on this blog wasn't the first thing on my mind. However, I promise to do better in the coming year. Sometimes when I take notice of how many times I worked on this in the previous months I am struck by how some months are quite busy and others are not. I don't know if this is the record for low input; however, I am pretty sure I am close to the bottom. And writing something like you now see before you is a cheap way to fill in the blank days in the month.

I also realize that sometimes I just become rather chatty and on those days the blogs fill up the month. I notice that some months have had forty or fifty blog entries, where clearly I have been inspired. On the other hand, I suppose that that might just mean that I had access to a computer and a bit of quiet time to write.

On grey, cold days like today, there is not much inspiration. And there is always a lull during the post-Christmas months when the emotional response to the dull, dreary weather arrives. I thought last week that we might battle the January blahs by keeping lights up in the trees and along the eaves of our houses. Perhaps the color and the lights might battle with the blues so prevalent at this time of year.

Of course, if I was like my young cousin in St. Petersburg, I could just fly to South America or Southeast Asia or Australia and avoid the Winter blues with a polar flip. Unfortunately, I have clients and a wife and daughter at home, not to mention the lack of wherewithal to fund such a globe-trotting existance. Oh, the room just turned a little green there. And the daffodils aren't even out yet.

I saw some paintings on an episode of Martha Stewart that Cindy had recorded from an artist in Brooklyn. They were quite effective renderings of the Winter time in New York. I really enjoyed here technique. They were giving out postcard prints of her work.

I have my Andrew Wyeth poster on the wall in my office and I really do enjoy the depiction of a farm foreclosure, despite its somewhat somber subject. The picture is rendered in somber colors of browns and tans. But the textures are sublime and the subject is not so clear that you would immediately think "farm foreclosure" when you looked at the picture.

When I think of Montgomery County, Tennessee in Winter, I do see browns and greys and tans, but I also see deep blue-greys in the afternoon skies and the greens from the cedar trees along the fencerows. I even see the rust colored Hereford cattle out in the fields, mixing with the barns, one or two of which were painted red for some reason.

Now I suppose the farm is substantially brown and grey, with no house or barns or livestock on the place. I haven't seen it in about ten years now and I know the county tore down the house and the outbuildings. There haven't been any cattle in the pastures for some time. All of the old fencerows were weathered grey when there were cattle to be kept from the row crops. Even the house was white frame and grey stone. Only the red ribbons and green wreath on the door to show that it was Christmas time would offer some contrast to the dreary shades of December and January.

Here in Georgia, there will be blue skies and fields of daffodils to herald the return of Spring. Despite the possibility of snow in January and February, there will be the usual early Spring and the coming of flowers sprouting up from the brown grass. Are baseball and azaleas and Spring that far behind?