Well Hello Winter

My Writers Studio

It happens every year, and yet I still find it special, that first snow.

Some years we get a few flurries with the initial cold weather shift, but this year we got the real deal, about 5 inches of heavy wet stuff two days ago.

I run nostalgic about first snows, remembering the big storms of my life like the huge Chicago snow of 1967. I was eight years old and we lived in a three story walk-up. With three other babes at home, my father took my six old sister Mary and I out into the storm of the century to bring home bread and milk. He pulled us on a sled down the middle of Ashland Ave. where no motorized vehicles were running. It was exhilarating!

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This snow, 49 years later, was absolutely benign compared to that, but still; it reminds me of my fathers' ways: his intent to keep his family safe, warm and fed, his desire to prove a little weather couldn't slow him down, his unending love to have fun in life.

Thankfully, we had our animal shelters secured just prior to our minor snow of 2016, and our Rocket Mass Stove is working just fine. My horse Ennis though, only occasioanally hangs out in her livestock trailer shelter.  She's always been a bit of a snow bunny.

We do need a good tarp for our sole tractor as there is no barn or garage (yet) to house it. Take note for anyone related to us reading this blog, who needs a Christmas idea. Yes, subtle, that's me.

Of course, someone always gets stuck in our drive, which is sorely lacking for a good bed of gravel. Problem solved with the old truck and a chain pulling out the newer truck.

This next weeks temps will drop into the teens but for us, frozen ground is so much better than the deep mud we had yesterday after the temp went up and melted about half the snow. All our ground hoses are out of commission now for the season and water must be carried to our livestock, which is not too much of a burden since our numbers are so small compared to the years we were on the big farm. We carry multiple five gallon buckets for one horse, two cows, four steer and the chickens/ducks. The dogs and cats drink out of any of those water troughs as desired.

Our Looney Bin was built between a tall thick grove of Evergreens on the south and smaller trees; a Weeping Mulberry, an Aspen, a grove of wild Plum. After this snow it looked like we tucked inside a fluffy ball of cotton candy, where the wind never really hits us, but just swirls around us.

Not a bad place to be.