They say he carved that spoon himself - from a bigger spoon

I love salt. I have, let's see - I believe about six salt shakers on my kitchen table at the moment: regular sea salt, salt mined from the Utah salt flats, Himalayan pink salt, seasoning salt, and I believe one other.

I recently got a new salt; this one is a French Celtic salt, from the Bay of Biscay.

Yes, that is bacon salt on the right there.

However, since this is a rather clumpy salt, I won't be able to put it in a shaker. I decided to put it in a little jar, along with a tiny spoon for me to scoop it out with. One problem: no tiny spoon. I did find this one online, and it is only a buck-fity, but I want to scoop my salt NOW! So I decided to make my own.

I whittled it out of a Popsicle stick (hey, we're not fancy here) in about ten minutes.



Hopefully, you can see the slight concavity at the front of the stick, as well as the little crescent cut out of the back to make it more ergonomic. It's not amazing, but it'll do for now.

Why is that during my toughest times as a goose, I only see one set of web-footed prints?

Like the archaeologists that found that 6,000 year-old couple still in an embrace, the snow-covered river left the story of two geese, undoubtedly in love, going for a stroll together.

I imagine that one of these geese is the white domestic goose that has intergrated into the flock of Canadian geese that live here by the river. Truly, even for geese, love knows no color.





You can see that at one point, one of the geese gets sort of distracted and meanders away for a moment. Then, realizing how far he's wandered, he waddles back up, following directly behind her, his prints meshing with hers, until he catches up.

They then waddle away together around the bend, and "get it on".

How's that for a Valentime's post?

Snow kitty

We haven't had much snow, but luckily I took a lot of photos earlier in the winter. This critter is long gone by now.....but he still stalks me in my dreams.

But he was a titan in his time, seven feet of feline imposition.




Check out the tail and the collar. I love the attention to detail. It would be an honor to feel its' razor-sharp, bacteria-infested claws slicing my eyes out.

It would beat dying on the toilet, at any rate...

snow tracks

Why should snowpeople get all the glory? On my travels, I've found many interesting things in the medium of snow. No, I'm not talking about dog feces...




There's something very wonderful about a set of animal tracks in freshly fallen snow. I suppose it's the beauty of impermanence. Sort of like a masterpiece done on an Etch-a-Sketch, you know that it won't last for long, and so you're compelled to stare at it, meditate upon it. Then you feel serene. Then you smush the tracks with your foot, and they're gone forever...

microcosm of the packers season

I know football season is over, so I'll try to be brief.

We all knew it would be a down season, but still 0-4

was unnerving and left us a little wobbly.

But then we beat, nay, spanked the hurricane-weary Saints

52-3. Some people would say it was wrong to kick a team like that

when they are down. Not me. I was on top of the world.

But it was all downhill from there...a long, slow, drawn-out fall

on our asses. On national television, no less.

This picture is oddly reminisent of Bat Starr's plunge across the goal line in the Ice Bowl. Only without the glory. Still, it could be worse...I could be a Viking fan.

venus de milo

Sadly, the ravages of time and sunshine had already taken their toll by the time I discovered her on a backroad not too far from my house. I couldn't let it go one second more with documenting her for posterity.



Not only do I admire the artist's obvious skill, but also his or her willingness to be seen cupping snow-breasts out in their front yard, in plain view of God and everyone. But then, there is no art without suffering, or at the very least, awkwardness.

Million Snowman March

Compliments of the Onion:

The Million Snowman March...who says Jesse Jackson doesn't care about white people?









I usually hate to hear crackers complain, but in this case, I'll make an exception.




We shall overcome....