Coldfwigs Warm

"Coldfwigs Warm"
This phrase was printed on snowman bellies
at a store in Smicksburg.
Not being able to figure out the meaning,
I asked other shoppers,
the checkout girls,
the guy who owned the store....
No great ideas
'til the owner asked his wife.
She said the shipment had come from Japan
and the boxes and packing slips were almost indecipherable--
spelling errors,
reversed letters,
spacing mistakes.
Knowing that, she speculated
thinking of "Cold hands, warm heart",
it should have been "Cold twigs, warm..."
and then the heart was missing.
Those little snowman bellies
have had me chuckling all week.

In the same store was a sign:
"We may find that the little things were really the big things after all."
With that in mind,
here is a partial list of other little things this week:
-tomato cheese pie
-a pocket of sunshine on a chilly day
-cat snuffles
-an exquisite spotted moth
-a milksnake stretched across afternoon bricks
-south-to-north lightning
-fireside conversations
-Singin' in the Rain
-a fresh cabbage
-two brand-new ten-cent baby carriers at Goodwill
(did you know that Katrina and Paul are expecting in early October?)
-a u-turn on Beaver Drive

In May I wrote of being unable to confirm a roadkilled badger--
add that to the list of little things in life that I'd change.
Since that time,
I reminded myself that sometimes things need immediate attention,
so yesterday
when I spotted a mostly intact unknown mammal on Beaver Drive,
I turned around,
parked,
carried the little fella by the tail to the car,
emptied a grocery bag for the carcass,
deposited the body,
tied the bag shut,
and brought him home.
Using the Fieldbook of Natural History
(perhaps the most useful present Den has ever gotten me),
I checked for small, round ears
and a white chinspot
amd confirmed that it was, indeed,
a mink.
Cool!

Now, what to do with a mink?
I showed Paul and Katrina,
showed Denny,
then decided to give it as a belated birthday gift to my friend Linda
who had encouraged my previous badger thoughts.
I made a card:
"Yesterday I went to Goodwill,
and found you a mink...
in the middle of Beaver Drive."
Today I dropped the gift and card at Linda's house.
She took it well.

Parting advice:
Appreciate the little things each day,
and beware of gifts in plastic bags.

S.