November Wind

The wind blew hard on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Hard enough that our power went out by 8:15 in the morning. That worried me as I was all set to bake cookies and rolls for the holiday. And what about roasting a turkey... Fortunately the power returned by late morning and despite wind gusts all day the power stayed on and Thanksgiving went off without a hitch.

It was a cold, bracing November wind. Invigorating if you bundled up and stood against the wind. While the power was out Kodi and I drove to Durham and hiked out to a scenic point on the Great Bay estuary. Few other people braved the wind, except for two very hardy duck hunters perched off the point in a blind with a bevy of duck decoys floating just off-shore. The wind whipped up white caps all around them. I shivered and headed back inland.

Over this Thanksgiving holiday we've eaten many hearty meals that included a homemade rhubarb pie that my 5 and 7 year-old nieces helped me make. The crust was perfect as was the rhubarb, which came from my parent's farm. To work off the meal yesterday we walked to a nearby conservation area. There we saw that beaver were also busy this week preparing for their winter meals. They were adding chewed branches to their lodge and stashing freshly cut twigs at the water's surface near the lodge entrance, where they can easily reach them from underwater once the pond freezes over.

 

alders, freshly cut by beavers

 the beaver's stash lying at the water's surface, the lodge is beyond

Milkweed pods stood empty in the field overlooking the beaver pond, their silky seeds blown free by the November wind. We walked home for another meal and another piece of warm pie.