the dark time of the year
last saturday night/sunday morning somebody died in the village, we still don't know who, because we only heard the church bells ringing at 6 a.m. when we got up to leave. crossing the village in the car, my dad and i were straining to see whether there was a particular house with all the lights on....nothing but silence and semi-foggy darkness at that time. the he says: "look ahead, there's a deer!"
there was something moving, in the middle of the road, and at first it could have been any small to mid-sized animal. then it straightened in the headlights, but not even in fright, and looked at us for an instant before jumping back - soooo gracefully - on a side path that goes among some abandoned houses and up to the field.
my father takes this hard because i guess to him this spells complete destruction more than other obvious signs: "imagine, deers grazing in the middle of the village!" he says, and i can't bring myself to being cute about it and telling him how dozens of squirrels jump around the quiet streets of montreal est some early mornings in the fall. this is more like in "the jungle book" when mowgli unleashes the jungle onto the village, and although one loves good revenge and one knows animals are better than people, what else can you feel but dark feelings?
otherwise, winter refuses to snow picturesquely, so the general landscape of the village is like this:
and then last weekend there were a lot of pig killings, with the implicit assist of the non-wintry weather. this one's my aunt's pig, also in the middle of the road, because what.
and here they're torching the pig with gas, to clean the skin. back when i was a kid one would use straw for the torching, and the fires were epic - best thing about killing pigs (the rest - tranching the meat and cleaning the intestines to fill them for sausages, and preparing the meat in various ways etc. etc - is a very dirty and stressful event, and needs a thorough house-cleaning afterward. ugh.)
i explained to my aunt and uncle that they needed to pose for me,'sartorialist'-style, because they were all matchy-matchy. i feel a bit bad that they're taking me sort-of-seriously.
and here is how i spent the largest part of my weekend: taking advantage of the new (previously unused) stove in the main room. we kept the fire going in 2 rooms at once, because when we got there it was literally colder inside the house than outside.
thank you, fire, for the little comforts:
there was something moving, in the middle of the road, and at first it could have been any small to mid-sized animal. then it straightened in the headlights, but not even in fright, and looked at us for an instant before jumping back - soooo gracefully - on a side path that goes among some abandoned houses and up to the field.
my father takes this hard because i guess to him this spells complete destruction more than other obvious signs: "imagine, deers grazing in the middle of the village!" he says, and i can't bring myself to being cute about it and telling him how dozens of squirrels jump around the quiet streets of montreal est some early mornings in the fall. this is more like in "the jungle book" when mowgli unleashes the jungle onto the village, and although one loves good revenge and one knows animals are better than people, what else can you feel but dark feelings?
otherwise, winter refuses to snow picturesquely, so the general landscape of the village is like this:
and then last weekend there were a lot of pig killings, with the implicit assist of the non-wintry weather. this one's my aunt's pig, also in the middle of the road, because what.
and here they're torching the pig with gas, to clean the skin. back when i was a kid one would use straw for the torching, and the fires were epic - best thing about killing pigs (the rest - tranching the meat and cleaning the intestines to fill them for sausages, and preparing the meat in various ways etc. etc - is a very dirty and stressful event, and needs a thorough house-cleaning afterward. ugh.)
i explained to my aunt and uncle that they needed to pose for me,'sartorialist'-style, because they were all matchy-matchy. i feel a bit bad that they're taking me sort-of-seriously.
and here is how i spent the largest part of my weekend: taking advantage of the new (previously unused) stove in the main room. we kept the fire going in 2 rooms at once, because when we got there it was literally colder inside the house than outside.
thank you, fire, for the little comforts:
Comments
Post a Comment