Walkin in a Winter Wonderland

Lake didn't come up to eat today. By noon I was getting kind of worried - she is an old girl, after all. So I decided to go and find her, somewhere on the rolling 60 acres.

When I say rolling, I mean rolling - you can't see the back hill from the house, and you can't see the house once you cross the first hill. It isn't all straight back and north from the house, either - the property jogs sharply to the west, then north again. Sometimes all you can see from the middle of the property is the town water tower - and it is so short they are not required to put lights on it.

The snow has been pouring down all day. It makes the back hills disappear in a fog of snowfall. So I started on my walk, bundled against the cold, with snowflakes dusting my coat and hat and scarf before I was over the first hill.

I walked first to the valley that she likes the best. No Lake. I then started up toward the Twisted Cedars - a grove of cedar trees that have become so twisted and warped by the wind that their roots are exposed, yet they still grow. One of the big branches - thicker than my thigh - was smashed by wind; I'll need to clean that up, but not now, later.

I headed west, the wind at my back whenever I topped a rise, but otherwise eddying around me. Not a lot of wind - only about 10 mph today. I can see the distant fence posts, but not the barbed wire attached to them, marching like dark pencil-sentinels over the hills. Finally, topping a rise, I see Lake - head down, munching and meandering. I walk toward her, and she walks away. This is a good sign - she can move, just doesn't want to be bothered. I half-heartedly herd her a little, mostly just wanting to make it to the western fence to see the rest of the landscape, make sure nothing is out of place. She ambles away from me, intent on her own horse priorities. I can see that she is confused - she didn't expect me to come out there, not in this weather. She nickers and snorts, and casts her ears forward, as if asking if I'm okay. Even when she puts her head down to munch, she still looks at me inquisitively. I talk to her a little, to reassure her that I'm not completely crazy. She apparently doesn't believe me. Of course, she's the one with a snowdrift on her back!

Then I walked back to the middle of the property. The wind is against me, and the cold is cutting across my cheeks; I pull my scarf up over my nose up to my eyes and keep walking. The snow is squeaking under my boots, but that's the only sound. There's no traffic on the state highway on the outskirt of the town. There's no sound at all. There are turkey and rabbit tracks in the snow, but no lights, no sound, no movement anywhere. Then I walked down the fence line to the gate at the middle of the property, the gate that opens up onto the last road at the western edge of town. I slip through and secure it tightly again, and walk up the street toward home. Again, no sounds, no movement. Everyone is inside away from the snow. They probably think I'm crazy, walking down the middle of the street in a snowstorm that is untrammeled by any feet, walking in between the car ruts that are fast-filling with the falling snow.

I cannot understand why people dislike snowstorms, avoid them, don't like to be out in them. Being trapped or stranded is one thing, but when you live in it, why not enjoy whatever it brings?

Changes!

Three days of temperatures in the 60's this past week - and I had to be at work. I took an extra hour off so I could shovel up some mulched leaves, grass, and wood chips from the schoolyard into my pickup, and add them to my compost pile, mixing in some spoiled hay and horse poop, throwing it all together with the remains in my initial compost heap. I soaked it all down and got it working again.

Even though it was in the 60's for several days, we still have a few frozen 'glaciers' on the property. Most of the snow and ice melted from the front yard, but in the back along the pasture fences, there are still slick and frozen-solid white mounds.

Yesterday the temps dropped back into the 20's again, with blowing snow flurries. Today it is breathless, windless, as the snow clouds gather overhead, and flurries whisper and wander down. It is supposed to snow all weekend and into Monday. No blizzard this time - just soft flakes piling up in silence. No violence. Peaceful.

The principal and I promised to stay in touch this weekend, to cancel school on Monday if need be. It is such an iffy thing - most of the time the roads stay clear even in snowstorms, because of the blowing snow everywhere that doesn't stick, and only piles up against the windbreaks of trees. Sometimes the snow piles up so high near those windbreaks that the nearby fences are covered in gently sloping drifts, that the cattle and horses can walk over and out with impunity. Note to self - plant windbreaks well away from fencing... Not a problem on my property, of course; most of it does not meet the road, and the way it is situated, windbreaks on the hill don't have to be near the bottom slope where the fences are. Now if I could just keep Lake the horse from scratching her belly on the short trees...

New friends keep asking me if I still like the Nebraska winter. I am puzzled. Of course! In it's raging violence or it's silent encroachment, it is beautiful; living breathing nature.

Why I Love it Here

Today I opened a can of blueberries; a big #10 can, and drained them to make blueberry pancakes for breakfast and some other thngs. Thinking about a blueberry-cheese coffeecake. Yum. But I also love the blueberry juice; I don't waste a drop. It goes into a pitcher in the fridge.

While I was doing that I thought, "Hey, I haven't listened to the CD I got from Donna." Donna gave me a CD of her husband's poetry for Christmas, and as hectic as things have been, I hadn't had time to listen. Marty is a Cowboy Poet; and the one poem she let me read just tickled me to death. So for Christmas she gave me one of his CDs.

And all I can say is, WOW. Now maybe you don't like poetry, but I do. I used to be considered a poet in my own right; well-published and all. But I got away from it when I started reporting for newspapers and writing my columns; being a poet gave me the ability to turn a phrase and have an impact that most folks can't. I love the written and the spoken word; the rhythmic cadence of life. It's the Irish in me, I guess.

But Marty has a way to make you see what he's talking about; the glorious beauty of the Sandhills, the solitary gravestone, the Not-so-Handsome Man, the woman he's telling about Prairie Grass and Water. And his sense of humor is subtle and then sudden; smacks you upside the head like a blast of cold mountain wind when you top a rise, and makes you burst into involuntary laughter.

Marty's poetry will probably never be read at an inauguration or praised and dissected by professors in the halls of Yale or Stanford. But his poetry reminds me what I love about the West, and why I wanted to move here - specifically HERE, not somewhere else. Like all really good poetry, it inspires you, makes you stop and think, pause and reflect - and evokes a feeling that lasts, long after the words are silent. I'd like to send copies to all of my friends, so they could understand what I feel, what this place and its people are like, and why I love it so. Sadly, most of them would probably say, "I don't like poetry" or not find the time to listen, and then tuck it away somewhere to collect dust. I recognize - and have, all my life - that people who get it, just naturally get it - and people who don't get it, never will. And I'm not just talking about poetry...

Winter Setting in

Well, Christmas is over, the lights are down and boxed away. Now comes the deepening of winter; the colder days and nights of January, February and March. Now is the time that people complain about cabin fever; the long days and nights of chores and the same faces and people around us, the desperate desire for sunshine and mobility and fun.

The deer that has been hanging in the garage for three weeks now is still frozen solid. No mice or anything have ventured near it; it is frozen too hard - even when the temps climbed to 40 degrees for two days straight! - and is untouched. So today DH and I went out and, using his electric hand saw, cut it into managable pieces, loaded it into the wheelbarrow, and took it down into the basement. There it sits, loaded into the big laundry sink we installed this summer, waiting to be cleaned and thawed. I think I'll set a table up next to it and just cut it down there; it will be easier to clean and cut without worrying about my smaller kitchen sink and countertops.

Looking around the basement; since we didn't get the greenhouse set up, I will have to start the seeds in the warm basement. The catalogs are in, and this and next month I'll be ordering the flats and lights and seeds. We have already determined a spot for them to go, to be close to the water outlet and in the warmest room. The cooling room right off of the basement outside egress is too cool; it will have to be reserved for my potato storage and, in the future, the milk cooling room for the cows. Oh, all the things I want to grow here! Carrots and radishes and onions and peas and spinach., and all of the other 'normal' things. Going to see how well collards do here, too.
I need to get a couple of bags of forage seed for the hills in back; not only to help retain the sandy soil, but to start it on its way to providing for the planned cows, and hopefully choking out some invasive weeds as well. Mangel beets, too, for additional winter feed; those will go into the east garden along with the corn. I'd like to add to the windbreak in back; probably not right away, but I'm thinking that the Black Hills pines ought to do well here too. The Black Hills are only 150 miles away, after all. And they grow fast and are very big, conical, and pretty.

I love the winter doldrums, planning for spring and laying out what will go where. We'll have to start the chickens in the basement too, but in their own little area until they can grow big enough to go outside; but I won't order them til March. Probably going with the Barred Rock variety, that lays even in winter, the big brown eggs I love, and still has good meat. Debating how many to order - 10 cockerels and 25 hens; butcher all but two cockerels at 12 weeks and have a freezer full of chicken? Or butcher all but one cockerel? I really don't want to put all my future eggs in one basket - with my luck the one rooster I don't kill will be gay, suicidal, or get himself killed, and then - no babies. Sigh. Do I really want to start them in the ceramics room right near the heater, will the smell waft upstairs thru all the vents? Argh. Thinking and planning and debating.

DH came up with an idea. We were planning on tearing down the garage - it is so decrepit that the insurance fella said he couldn't insure it - and that was going to be remanufactured into our chicken coop. However we need a place to store the mower, etc. We were going to have a new garage built with the $$ we were supposed to get from one of his settlements (that was promised in Sept., but as usual, no such has been forthcoming yet). DH said why not close in one end of the pole barn, and move everything into it, then we can tear down the garage and start building the coop. Hmmmmm... good thought. I don't like my chickens running outside of a pen and yard; they are too much trouble to catch and deal with, and I don't want the neighbors complaining.

Meanwhile I am soaking some pinto beans to make bean and bacon soup for this next week, and have a corned beef brisket simmering for Sunday supper. All I have to do now is finish the laundry and put the potatoes and cabbage in the brisket. Later I'll cook the beans and fry some bacon and get that pot stirring as well. I've got a big can of blueberries on the counter that I have to drain and repackage and freeze - maybe blueberry muffins for dessert?

Who has time to be bored?