Winter Weather

                It’s cold.

                Every few years, weather patterns shift and cold air rushes into the valley, reminding us that we are pretty darn far north. The sky clears so that we can see just how low the sun is in the sky; at this time of year, it barely clears my neighbor’s two story house.  Without the blanket of cloud cover, all of our heat rushes away.

                The light is beautiful. One morning, I walked to work in early rose-gold sun that danced off of the ponderosa pines which line the baseball field and lit up the dusting of snow on the hills around town. Evergreens and snow at dawn—it doesn’t get much better. The next morning, snow swirled around our houses, covering everything, including the Christmas lights, with a dusting of white frost. When the sun came out in the afternoon, it was blinding.

                We’ve had to do some serious snugging down against the cold. I covered all of the garden beds with plastic sheeting and wrapped a spare piece around the wheelbarrow of strawberry plants. In the greenhouse, we pulled all of the plants close together on the ground and covered them with remay cloth. I wrapped the beehive in two layers of frost protection blanketing, leaving just a small opening for them to come in and out.  We also emptied the larder, which vents to the outside, into the basement so that the onions and squashes would not freeze.  Finally, we plugged the fireplace again, although we will take it out for Twelfth Night on Friday.

                When it is this cold (below 20 degrees), the chickens are not happy outside overnight. After dark, we pull on boots and wool hats and march out to the coop. Mark reaches in and captures one chicken, I pick up the other, and we settle their wings close to their bodies under our arms. Mark heads for the house first. I stand outside for another moment, holding the warm and sleepy chicken close, and glance up to the sky. High about, Orion carves his way across the sky and a quarter moon lights the yard. Once inside, we settle them on a log perch, over newspaper, and shut off the lights. They will spend the night down there, protected from the deep cold, until morning, when I release them into the back yard to cluck and shake their wings free once more. It is good to know that we are all settled into our little homestead on these bitter nights.