Shhhhhhhh -

Keep it under your hat, but I'm going to post something here - broken keyboard and all (but that's another story). It's been a whale of a year, with enormous peaks and valleys, and it has seemed like too much to even put pen to paper (so to speak).

Oddly enough, the first post here, the one that pretty much created "Leaving Nadderby", spoke to just the kind of year this has been. If anyone else sees this post, I will as in the past recommend that you find the original "Looking Back" from February 2008 as an introduction to what Leaving Nadderby is all about, when I'm able to do it.

The year has not all been bad news, and even in adjusting to new directions there have been whispers of new beginnings & possibilities.

My deepest apologies to anyone who has checked by at this site over the past year. This is the first day of Spring (at least since 7:44 EDT), so maybe it really can be a new beginning. I stopped making rash promises about what I would be able to do a long time ago, but there is hope. [BTW, when people talk about "opening a Pandora's Box" in reference to unleashing a torrent of evils, they often forget that the storyteller said that there was still one thing remaining to be unleashed after Pandora's curiosity had turned loose all of the world's evils - Hope. (Storytellers, paradoxically, often know the most about telling the Truth)].

If I can get going again, I will look into the RSS possibilities (about which I was enlightened last year - thanks to a reader) as a way to get word around, but for today it's just about seeing if I can manage to both type AND hit the "publish post" button.

Stay tuned.

Encased

If a person can't get out at least one blog during a Level 3 Snow emergency, then he/she doesn't deserve the hallowed title of "blogger" - (or am I assuming too much about how highly esteemed bloggers are?) - so here are some thoughts from the snowy wilds of western Ohio.

Before the snow & wind brought us a much more conventional Winter storm, our area had one of the most interesting storms I had seen in my first 1/2 Century. To say that we were covered in ice last week would give the wrong impression. Over the course of a day it appeared that every vertical surface in our immediate vicinity had grown a quarter-inch of ice. Not just trees & fences, but individual blades of grass stood out with a clear, glass-like coating of ice. It looked as if it had been applied one molecule at a time.

One by-product of this storm was a massive power outage, lasting from several hours to a few days in our area. Another by-product was an incredible beauty shining through the crushing power of all that ice. The entire region is still littered with broken limbs & even some trees that split vertically all the way to the ground. Homeowners & Utilities officials can be seen, chainsaws in hand, sizing up some of the trees which have suffered the most severe damage. I hope they will not decide too quickly which trees are beyond help.

As the thaw progressed, hundreds of trees which had been bowed to the ground underwent a heroic transformation, recovering in ways which had appeared impossible. First the midday sun turned all those tapestries of ice to silver. Then, after more than a day encased completely in unimaginable weight, most of the trees endured, bent, and began to recover. This Spring, the ones that survive the chainsaw will bear their scars as a part of the story they have lived. If there's not some kind of lesson to be had there, we're not paying attention.

BLOG NOTE: If you are new to "Leaving Nadderby", I urge you to click on the "February 2008 " link & go to "Looking Back" as a place to begin. Continued thanks go out to all of the encouragers & forwarders who are helping me figure out this process.