Threads and traces: December?! How did that happen?

04 December 2011

December?! How did that happen?

House, Cottonwood, SD

If you are eagle-eyed enough to notice that these shots do not look like December light, or even November light....congratulations. Now hush. I'm trying to get this line of thought back on track after an extraordinarily hectic couple of months. Every year I conveniently forget how fast-paced the fall semester tends to be. After traveling every weekend in October, I stayed in for November with a variety of work projects that also managed to consume every available weekend.

This culminated in a Thanksgiving dinner for 25 that happily, almost magically, worked out beautifully. We are in the heart of potluck country, after all, and the students, faculty, staff and friends of the museum outdid themselves. There is a quirky saying that the only Quaker sacrament is potluck. This is a great truism that only appears to be shallow on the surface. It's the same deep connection that we make when we share food at our meetings with our Lakota friends. You have to bring and share food, but it's not about the eating, it's about the bonding.

So here it is December, and snow is blowing around, and the temperature is supposed to be a whole 4 degrees F tonight. I fail to see why we can't just hibernate.

In other breaking news, the family genealogy project just took a bizarre turn when I discovered that my parents are actually related, and not just by marriage. I've checked this over dozens of times, and that's how it comes out. In the early 1600s, a brother and sister in the Hinton family started families that would eventually culminate in their 9th-great grandchildren meeting up, marrying, and unleashing the Shelton siblings on the world. My father's mother is descended from the daughter; my mother's mother is descended from the son. I don't know what that makes me, but I do know that my parents don't react at all well to being called Aunt Mom and Uncle Dad. And there will be no banjo music...

More genealogy later if I can untangle it. Here are some ghost town and prairie architecture shots from our trip to Brookings in October, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. And more mists. Enjoy.