Written on a Snowy Night

One Summer Day in the North

Blind in one eye, Bright in the other,

Ve and Vili's brother, the bees' conductor.

Buzzing galdr and songs of Balder

Among poppies so bold, brewing mead so gold.

Sparlin

Tracing back my surname (specific to MY genealogy, mind you!) suggests the following sequence of spelling changes: Sperlingham-->Sperlingh-->Sperling-->Sparling-->Sparlin.

I probably had an ancestor, Jan or Pieter or Niels, etc., who lived in the town of Sperlingham, thus, Jan of Sperlingham. I give this ancestor a Dutch first name, because his descendants later settled in New Amsterdam, and their names are found on the rolls of the Dutch Reformed Churches.

Sperling might refer to a fish--might! I've tried to track down the etymology, but it is ambiguous. If it does refer to a fish, I like to imagine that Sperlingham was along a coastline, perhaps a fishing village and that the great number of men were fisherman.

When Jan & family traveled to America, the name, "Jan of the town of Sperlingh," was shortened to Jan Sperlingh and so on. Some of the changes were, undoubtedly, errors, but might also have been personal preference. In one family, at least, from Indiana, the sons variously spelled their name either with or without the terminal "g," giving rise to Sparlins and Sparlings who were first cousins.

I am the descendant of one of these brothers who dropped the "g," and now with Social Security numbers firmly rooted in our society, there's less chance the spelling will change soon. However, a SSN, as immutable as that seems to us, is only a blip in history, and I have no doubt that hundreds of years from now, a descendant with a similar--but not exact--name will be squinting at my name, Kecia Sparlin, and making up stories about me, too.

Nearly January

It's a little warmer today, 40s in the late AM. The ducks are slow, as sedate as ducks can be--a relative condition, naturally.

We haven't had much precipitation this winter, and I'm getting worried, but then...I always worry this time of year...about moisture for the garden. It'll come, I remind myself. It always comes.

But what if it doesn't? I mean, droughts are not unheard of!

I can water from the hose once the real thaws come, but it's not the same, not at all. Soft water from the sky is not the same as hard water pumped up from the ground. The plants respond differently--true fact.

A Note on Winter by Emily

LXXX

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

Duck Talk

The behavior and chatter of chickens is well studied. Although not all the mysteries of a hen's cackle have been revealed, there's a pretty good understanding of chicken talk. They're extremely simple creatures, after all.

I don't know how well duck talk has been studied, ducks like the mallards on my river, but I suppose, considering that a chicken can be understood, that I can speculate the ducks are having a fine time this morning as the gale howls down the stream in freezing temperatures.

While we cringe and huddle inside, the ducks are dipping and paddling almost joyously. Some fly in, some fly out of the throng, the ladies quacking greetings and departures (boys don't quack). One could probably resent them for their giddiness in such miserable weather OR...we can be glad someone, at least, is having a good time.

How's the weather? Just ducky!