A Long Winter’s Night — 2022 Edition, Day 6

So here we are again, Goode Reader, a few days into the ascent to Spring. In a world that widely prefers wringing hands over the skilled use of them, this is a perilous time for everyone aboard ship, wanted on voyage or not. Never forget though that the thrill of being among the chosen is […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2019 Edition Day 1: Welcome Back

Welcome back to the hearth Goode Reader, and this incarnation of A Long Winter’s Night. The Winter Solstice stole upon us at 12:19 Atlantic Time this morning and today offers 14 minutes short of 7 hours less daylight than at the occasion of the Summer Solstice in June. The bittersweet news is that it all gets […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 9

The Fire Without and the Fire Within By LFM It’s only just started, but coming to pass Is a Winter as cold as a well digger’s ass. Yet it’s still not extreme if the truth’s to be told, For it used to be worse, just go ask someone old. Its fury brings failures of power […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 8

“As to Human kind, Winter will bring challenges at the end of which the result will lie on a spectrum ranging from the greatest of joys to the gravest of sorrows, and in this it stands as no different from any other aspect of life but for bearing a greater degree of urgency and inexorable […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 7

If you live in my neck of the woods, a lot of you lost electric power Christmas afternoon, and some will still be waiting for it until some time tonight. If you lack more “natural” means of heating your dwelling, things have gotten a bit cold, and the usual mid-season burnout has turned into quite […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 6

Culturally, the hospitality aspects of festivities prevailing at this time of year exist in a maelstrom of ill considered and contradictory drives. Year after year, many will attempt to answer seasonal motivations to visit people who sometimes live at a great remove and may be reached at no small peril to life and limb, even […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 5

The best of everything from us to all of you who matter. The rest we’ll fall upon without mercy in a snow storm before Spring, as I’ve promised the Dogs. Anyway, whether you’re on our naughty or nice list, you know who you are. Yet glorious day, the Solstice comes With casting off of dooms! […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 4

Someone most of us here have enjoyed the benefit of “knowing” since our childhood embarks on another perilous journey tonight, and few have every paused to consider the strategic, tactical, and logistical realities of a Grand Mission that, done half-assed, could end up being Nick’s last ride. He’s been at this a while so it […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 3

In the early morning hours of 17 January 1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and subsequent aftershocks knocked out power to much of the city of Los Angeles, California, plunging at nightfall some of the most light polluted portions of the globe into a deeper darkness than most of its denizens had ever known existed. Named […]

A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 1

Winter in Nova Scotia will arrive at twenty-eight minutes past noon Atlantic Standard Time today when the Solstice heralds the start of the long, slow plod to Spring. For those of us of whatever species who haven’t already migrated or gone into hibernation, this is a time of uncertainty tempered with incipient joy. The Black […]