Heading Down The Ramp

Back in the days when letter-writing was still a major method for keeping in touch, my great aunt used to close all of her letters, “We are all as usual.” I remember that my mother and her sister Mona used to speculate about that statement, often with a bit of chuckling. They never really knew with that particular relative just what “as usual” meant.

Spring On The Way

However, I think it is a useful phrase and when I think of an ordinary winter day in Oysterville – the kind we have had ad infinitum recently – it is a description that fills the bill. Yesterday was a day like that. Everything was absolutely as usual.

Take the chickens, for instance. It was my turn to do the morning duty – open the coop door, check the nest boxes, fill the feed and water pans, visit a while and give them a little cracked corn. Those things happened on schedule. The girls were friendly and talkative and seemed appreciative. As usual.

I checked out the daffodils near the west fence and they were looking energetic and a bit smug. They are about to burst into bloom – just in time according to the garden books. Late winter or early spring! As usual.

Oysterville Meeting

And, last evening we had an ‘Oysterville Meeting’ in the middle of the road as we do from time to time. Though it was a very ordinary “meeting” – I think we were talking about the three eagles in the spruce tree on Merchant Street – the picture I took actually didn’t look very usual at all. But things aren’t always as they appear. Nyel and Tucker had just been over at Cyndy’s picking up some equipment they had loaned her – one a walker, the other a cane.

Great photograph! But totally misleading and not “as usual” at all – not now, anyway. Thank goodness!