Ah, winter. It’s cold in Oregon. Very cold.

The older I get, the better able I am to predict the regular, natural flow of the weather patterns. (This is frustrated somewhat by the gradual shift caused by global climate change, but the general trends hold true.) The last few years have each been unusual in some way or other. Last year was very wet, for example. This year, however, had been a by-the-book Portland winter, and that trend is continuing.

We had a light dusting of snow late in the week, and then the cold weather set in. I expect this in mid-January. I expect the coldest snap to reach us later in the month or at the beginning of February. That’s also the most likely time for good snowfall.

Then, in mid-February, the sun will begin to exert its presence, and the clear days won’t just be clear — they’ll be warm, too. I remember those days fondly from my years at college: everyone traipsing around in shorts because the high temperatures approached sixty degrees, people lounging around the plaza. Good times.

Now the clear, bright days of winter — whether cold or warm — mean yardwork, especially on the weekends. There are fruit trees to prune, grapes to prune, berries to prune, roses to prune, hedges to prune. I could spend my whole life pruning.

It’s nice, though, to be working in the yard with the birds, and the cats (who like the birds), and my wife (who likes the cats and the birds). It’s a pleasant, relaxing thing, and a fine change of pace from my constant connection to the computer.

Yesterday morning, I spent some time outside with the cats. Simon, Nemo, and Meatball helped me prune the grapes, the apple trees, and the berries. They thought it was great fun. I thought it was cold. My fingers and toes were numb within minutes — how must their paws have felt? I’m at something of a loss when it comes to pruning. I have a book that is intended to guide me, but actually raises more questions than it answers. I should check to see if the extension service has better information.

Simon had some excitement while he was out. The new renter across the street has the annoying habit of letting her dogs loose without supervision — she opens the door and lets them roam free. They’re nice dogs, and I like them, but I don’t like the way they come tromping through our yard. Yesterday the larger of the two spied simon and chased him up the cedar tree. sigh He was stuck about twenty feet up, cold and frightened. We left him there for about an hour before I decided to coax him down. He scooted down butt-first, squeaking his whiney little cry the entire time, until he was within reach if I stood on tip-toes. Then he wouldn’t come any further. He kept looking down at me, squeaking. I managed to grab his fat ass and pull him down, and he ran inside where it was safe and warm.

Pastoral lifestyle, indeed!

Kris and I grow a vegetable garden every year, but some summers are more productive than others. This summer has been the most productive that I can recall.

We were swimming in berries from the end of May until the end of July. We had so many berries that we eventually gave up. Can you imagine? Not eating fresh berries that sit there, ready to be picked? We didn’t let them all go to waste, of course. Kris canned some of them. I’ve been enjoying toast and freezer jam every morning since we returned from San Francisco.

We were picking snow peas for just as long, eating them fresh off the vine. Eventually we gave up on those, too, and just let them wither. (We planted our fall pea crop a couple weeks ago; I have little one-inch sprouts.)

Kris and Craig masterminded a tomato-growing extravaganza: they ordered seeds together, and each are testing certain varieties. Kris has eight plants (plus just as many volunteers scattered throughout the yard), and she’s been harvesting the fruit like mad. She’s made tomato soup, tomato sauce, marinara sauce, and, of course, many batches of the Best Salsa Ever. Her tomato map hangs from the fridge, and she’s circled her favorite varieties (Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Yellow Pear, Bloody Butcher, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, and maybe Caspian Pink).

Our neighbors have given us apples and pears, and soon we’ll pick grapes from across the street. From our garden, we’ve picked cucumbers and green beans and zucchini and corn.

It’s a veritable cornucopia.

What to do with all this food? (Especially since I’m allergic to many vegetables?) Can it, of course.

Kris has been canning like crazy — sometimes with Tiffany’s help — and last night, she set out the fruits of her labor:

Here’s a list of everything that she’s canned:

• 3 kinds of bread ‘n’ butter pickles
• sweet pickles
• pickled zucchini
• pickled green beans
• pickled cherry tomatoes
• preserved grape leaves (experimental)
• pears
• almond pears
• pear pie filling
• mixed berry pie filling
• apple cranberry conserve
• apple elderberry conserve
• pear syrup
• tomato soup
• marinara sauce

Later she realized that she’d forgotten a box of jars downstairs. “And don’t forget that we’ve given some away, too,” she told me. She’s also making some (gnat-infested) berry liqueur, which is fermenting on a shelf in the library.

Of course, all of this canning is nothing compared to some people…

I’ve always been a sucker for things falling from the sky. I don’t mean planes or rain or meteorites; I mean light, delicate things: snow, blossoms, mist, and leaves. I bought the DVD for the awful Tom Cruise flick Legend simply because it has gorgeous scenes of meadows filled with floaty things. (Seriously.)

This evening I am sitting on the back porch, reclined in what has become my Writing Chair. Toto is sitting on the arm, watching me type. (She is my constant companion lately.) The sun is sinking low in the horizon behind me, and the quality of the light has turned golden. The locust, which towers just over there, just across the lawn, is bathed in the soft, warm light. A gentle breeze blows, stirring the locust leaves, causing the boughs to bob. As they bob, they shed small, yellow leaves, leaves which drift upon the breeze, forming a tumbling rain like canary feathers, floating across to me, landing on my lap.

It is like magic.

Toto moves to the other chair — her seat — and we listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. Curt and Tammy are working on their roof next door. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk (or puh-fut, puh-fut): Curt staples down shingles. Dogs bark in the yard behind us, but only aimlessly — barking for the sake of barking. A car surges past on Arista Avenue. Harvey and his family were out earlier, but they’re not now, although I think it’s their grill I smell. They’re cooking something savory and sweet. It smells like burning honey.

Somewhere, in the distance, I can hear the ice cream truck again. From here its tunes sound mournful.

I noticed berry prices at the Farmers Market last Sunday. Nearly everything’s $3/pint. (Or is it a quart? I don’t know.) That’s amazing! We’ve been in berries for two months now, and they’re thicker than ever.

“We must have eaten a hundred dollars in berries this year,” I told Kris.

“Easily,” she said.

Our peas are still on, too, but I think we’ve given up on those. We’ve never had peas so prolific. But two months of peas is enough for any man. Kris ate her first tomato today: a Bloody Butcher. She slurped it down, raving the whole time. She also picked some cucumbers, but she says she needs a few more before she can pickle them. She brought in a zucchini, too, and threatened to make some sort of muffin with it.

This is the best garden we’ve ever had.

(If only we had grapes, but there are none on the vine.)

I entered the weekend with an enormous list of chores, some from Kris, some self-assigned. We’re hosting a family reunion next weekend, which means extra cleaning on top of the normal routine. Among other things, I wanted to:

• Clean the workshop
• Sweep the entire house
• Mop the floors upstairs (we’ve lived in the house two years and have mopped the floors zero times)
• Mow the lawn
• Edge the lawn
• Purge clothes I no longer wear
• Dig out the laurel stump by the back porch
• Clean the back porch
• Install Kris’ new rain barrel

I also needed to spend some time working on my computer projects. I wanted to:

• Redesign my comics blog
• Add some new sections to my personal finance blog
• Organize the files on my laptop (boy, are they a mess!)
• Write several entries for these various places

And how much of this did I actually accomplish? Zero. Nada. Nothing.

That’s not to say I wasn’t productive. I worked hard. But I worked hard building horseshoe pits. Yes, you read that correctly. I installed two lanes — four pits. I scraped earth, poured sand, leveled paving stones, built pit frames, pounded in stakes, and so on. I spent many hours creating horseshoe pits. They’re far from perfect, but I like them.

I only wish somebody else had done my real chores in the meantime…