Shiver me timbers....

IT'S COLD!  This was my comment to Mossy as we walked this afternoon.  "Weenie" was her reply.  Mossy told of a cold at Yellowstone that froze her eyelids to her cheeks while she slept.  "Why, oh why would you stay so long in such a climate?"  I asked.    She told me it was to attend the fairies festival.  Mossy described a gathering of fairies that only a wild untamed expanse such as Yellowstone could hold.  Fairies from Ireland, Canada, why even Hawaii!  I spit out my coffee on that one.  Picture it:  small fairy, grass skirt, lei, and a buffalo snorting close by.  "Why at one point,"  she pointed out.  "You could not even find a vacant spot at Moose Falls to sit down."  I know better than to ask, but my mouth opens anyway.  "A spot to sit?"  "Yes, the canoes start up Crawfish Creek and we see who survives the Falls."  "See,"  I think,  "I should have kept my mouth shut."  Now I'm picturing tiny canoes with a Mossy relative sitting pointed hat and all holding on for dear life, airborne.  "Survive?"  I sort of squeaked out.  Mossy was delighted with my reaction and begins to pantomime a rather dramatic crash and then subsequent drowning.  One look at my face and she let out a hoot.  "Don't you know that I'm a pulling your leg?  Wee gnomes (as you like to call us) swim like fish.  In fact, one of our favorite past times is to swim upstream with salmon.  You know, a bit of exercise and to keep them company.  Them bears are kinda fun to mess with along the way.  They think they're going to catch dinner swiping under the current and instead up we pops and spits water up their noses! Of course, ya better be ready to REALLY swim after that move."  Mossy is now tight-rope walking the edge of the kitchen cabinets and from the corner of my eye Be'Be' flits in and out of the tree.  "Mossy, will Be'Be' ever leave the Christmas Tree?"  "Not til you take it down" she quipped quickly back.  Now as a rule I can't think of any month of the year that needs twinkle lights like January.  Yes, this means that I don't take down the Christmas tree until......ahhhhh.....Valentines?  Or is it March winds that start the process?  Hmmmm, I think as I pour another cup of coffee......I surely would adore to see that tiny fairy for more than 3 seconds at a time.  But take the tree down early ......................................NEVER!