Winter Memories

Still in winter’s grip on the farm. This icy spell is a bit more extreme than where I grew up but still I’m reminded of my childhood in England. I wrote about it a while ago:

“There’s something about going out on a cold and frosty morning. Like icing on a cake, lawns and roofs sparkle in bright morning sunshine. Freezing air invigorates the lungs, sunbeams are warm on the back already and soon are turning ice to vapor wherever they strike the ground. Everything’s so fresh and new looking, so crystal clear, so still.

Second only to the excitement of fresh snow, Jack Frost’s handiwork transformed our garden into the land of the ice witch. Before breakfast I’d help either Mum or Dad feed the chickens. We’d take hot water from the kitchen to thaw the bird’s drinking troughs. The grass in the runs would crunch under our feet as we scattered the morning feed.

Back in the kitchen, breakfast would warm us behind steamy windows – fingers of toast (soldiers they were called) dipped into bright yellowy-orange yolks of soft-boiled eggs.

A little later in life I remember hiking across the neighboring fields on winter mornings. Birdsong crackling in the brittle air was enough to bring forth a song – or a whistle at least – from my own lips and put a bounce in my step. I might see a tardy fox returning from a nightly prowl. In the distance plumes of smoke would be rising from the town as it cranked up for the day’s hustle and bustle. And I remember the sound of a saw from the local woodyard searing the morning silence.”

Maybe memory romanticizes a bit and winters in England were milder and shorter than here in in the Northeast. I don’t think most people are thrilled at dealing with graying snowbanks three weeks after our one-foot snowstorm, except the ski bums that is. Snow is one thing but the arctic plunge we’ve been dealing with is a bit more unusual. When I described the minus F temperatures to a West Coast friend, he said, that must be some of the coldest weather you’ve been in. Not quite, I replied. I did spend a winter in Calgary, Canada. And it seems I do have some muscle memory from that experience.

 I worked nights as a janitor. We’d be locked into huge department stores working (or sleeping) until we were let out early in the morning. I’d wait for the bus home watching incredible yellowy-orange sunrises, the same color as those egg yolks of home. Sharply-defined triangles of steam rose from the skyscrapers in the minus degree dawn – the breath of living buildings. Photos show my face, the only exposed part of my body, actually grew fatter that winter, an extra lining to insulate from the cold.

I realize I write about the weather a lot, close to it here at the farm, but also a safe topic perhaps in these turbulent times. The weather also seems turbulent these days, unpredictable, more extreme. Everything is connected and nature is just reflection of us, or perhaps the other way around. We should pay more attention.