phe·nol·o·gy
noun /fiˈnäləjē/
1.The study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, esp. in relation to climate and plant and animal life
There are several pieces of evidence which indicate impending seasonal shift.
First: I saw a motorcycle on the road. It was a beefed up Harley with giant ape hangers. (Could there be a worse ergonomic for handlebars than apehangers?) The fellow riding it seemed to have no particular cold-weather gear. When I ride in the cold I wear heavy jacket, a full face helmet, gauntlet gloves (from a snowmobile company) and if I’m really smart, my homemade electric vest. He was dressed like it was a 50 degree summer evening. It was 31° and dropping rapidly because the sun had just set.
I don’t know how far the fellow was going (he was just puttering along in town) but I have a theory that highway speeds on an exposed face at 31° is somewhere between painful and ludicrous. Frostbite in ten minutes maybe? Fifteen? Thus, I conclude that he was not going far or if he did he is now in the emergency room getting a face transplant.
Ironically at the exact same time I glanced at the nearby lake and there was a car on the ice. I couldn’t see clearly but it looked like a generic sedan; possibly an Impala. It was parked on a cleared part of the ice that had been an ice skater’s racing loop. I can only assume that some idiot was going to try his luck on the loop? I was in a hurry so I couldn’t stop to see if he sunk or wrecked… though either seemed reasonable.
Anytime you see a guy without a face mask riding a motorcycle in 31° while someone else is driving on an ice-skating loop on a lake… you are in the presence of world class cabin fever. Change is afoot!
Second: There is a broken down snowmobile stranded on the grass in the ditch about a mile from my house.
Third: The damn cats killed another one of the rabbits. This wasn’t a “gently receding ice discovery”. It was a “disemboweled woodland mammal on the driveway” discovery. I don’t know if this is related or not but two of the cats decided it was a good time to beat the hell out of each other. They were going at it with hammer and tongs in a big muddy quagmire that thaws every sunny day and freezes every night. During the warmest part of the afternoon the two cats decided to go at it and they were taking no prisoners. Both of them got coated in meltwater and mud from head to tail.
They must be evenly matched because neither one was bleeding. In fact, both of them looked like they’d been hit by a dump truck. There were no winners in that fight.
Since one of them had offed probably the sole remnant of my fall rabbit hunting stock twelve hours previously I call for a pox on both their houses. I was not sympathetic to their plight and if I find a muddy cat-sicle in the driveway it serves them right. They can be buried at sea in the hole where the Impala goes.
That is all. Observationally yours, AC.