Cabin Fever Contemplations

Make it stop.  Please.

The snow just slid off the roof of the house, its own mini avalanche, rattling these old windows and freaking out the cats and causing a vibration under my feet. 

It’s April 9.  This is uncalled for.  I’d call Mother Nature a b____, but she seems peeved about something already and I don’t want to antagonize her further.

A couple of days ago I was lamenting the bog that I call a driveway.  It happens every spring, and to most of the Adirondacks, and although at the time it seems unrelenting, it does go away.  As I look at everything covered in a couple inches of snow and sleet today, the mud would be a welcome sight.  That’s what I get for grousing.

Since leaving my day job at the end of the year, I’ve spend a lot of quality time with our woodstove.  I’ve concluded that when it’s a secondary source of heat, it’s fun to futz with wood and nice to smell the smoke.  But when you’re counting on it for your survival in sub-zero temperatures, it loses its luster.  By April, I can’t stand dealing with it anymore and curse profoundly at every piece of wood that doesn’t quite fit.  I’m resentful of the 24/7 commitment it demands and tired of smelling like a piece of charred wood. 

Because we got off to a late start on the firewood this fall (due to the house painting project), Larry cut nothing but ash.  I love it because it splits so nicely.  And you can burn it green, which was the plan.  It’s burned very well for us, considering it only had minutes to age.

Our new house in Mississippi has two fireplaces, and I’m trying not to be elitist towards them.  One has glass doors and was obviously used more regularly than the other one.  Neither are intended to be a real source of heat, but should be useful in getting the chill out on those damp days.  I haven’t used a fireplace since our camp in Lake George, so in yet another aspect, I’m coming full circle.  The smell and sound of a freshly stuck wooden match still reminds me of my grandfather.

I debated whether or not to bring the woodsplitter south.  For a brief insane moment I 

considered selling it, and ran the idea past Larry, who looked at me like I’d lost my mind.  What was I thinking?  We’ll always be playing with firewood.  Larry loves to drop trees and work with his chainsaws and I find splitting to be very zen.

Meanwhile I’m grateful for having a warm, toasty house, the fact that we had more than enough firewood to get us through the winter, and I’ll welcome the mud when it resurfaces.  I don’t want to irritate Mother Nature any further.

The Fifth Season

Someone came up to me the other day and said, "I didn’t recognize your truck in the parking lot. It was so dirty." That’s a tell-tale sign of mud season.

Ah yes, mud season, otherwise known as The Fifth Season, the precursor to spring. That long-awaited time of the year when the robins come back.  And I don’t bother cleaning floors.  Really, it’s like shoveling before the snowstorm ends - what’s the point?

Larry can get up the driveway in his front wheel drive Jetta, but the truck bogs down and I need four wheel drive to get off the road. Either that, or I back up in our neighbor's driveway and get a running start, shooting across Charley Hill Road, hopefully with enough momentum to get me to higher, drier ground.  Going through the turnaround becomes extra exciting, because sliding a foot or so in either direction is going to smack off a side-view mirror.

It also makes for squishy paths to the barn, and once the dirt bared itself, the chickens began to dig and churn and revel in its earthy glory. The horses came off Pasture A, reluctantly and unhappily, as now it has to be protected from their sharp hooves and allowed to grow unhampered. The rest of their area, aptly named the "sacrifice" area, now becomes a mud pit of its own until things dry up. I rotate feeding locations to try and minimize the damage.

Tis the season for old houses like ours to be catheterized. The sump pump is an important part of its long-term care. One spring when we had an ice storm and the power was knocked out, I came home and looked down the cellar stairs, to see kitty litter boxes floating like sand-filled pirate ships in a foot of water.

Mother Nature has been fickle this spring. This morning the sky was bright blue and a warm breeze caressed my face. It is now raw and raining, on the verge of sleeting - again.



[courtesy doranna.net]

It can be hard to stay chipper in weather like this - spring seems so close, yet so far. But yesterday I took a moment to look around the yard - the front garden soil looks black and rich. The perennial bed that I planted last year looks ready to pop as soon as it feels a few days of successive warmth. When I brush a horse, there’s a pony’s worth of hair on the ground at the end (note to self: do NOT wear Chapstik in the barn).    Hardy souls like crocuses and lilies are starting to push through the ground.

And the robins? They’re braving the rain and sleet. They know warmer weather’s just around the corner. And clean floors are way overrated.　


Coming soon to a yard near you!