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We woke to five inches of snow yesterday.
It snows here. Pretty regularly, all winter, but not in huge quantities. But in boonies territory, it doesn’t take a lot of snow to shut you down.
We haven’t had school here all week.
We live on a farm.
The children only have each other.
I hope they don’t hurt each other too much.
I’m pretty sure they were scaring the chickens.
The chickens would never behave like that.
The chickens make good use of cold weather by burrowing into their nesting boxes and laying eggs for me.
Birds eat their homemade suet.
The Giant Puppy romps.
Goats learn to walk in snow that covers half their legs.
And people shovel.
You know, people who aren’t me. As with the hoe, I’m not worthy of the shovel!!!
People also worry about cleaning the snow out of the satellite dish so they can get a proper internet connection.
(See how tiny our goats really are? Clover comes up to Weston’s knee.)
People also get bored, if they’re 13, and make a snowman as big as themselves.
Morgan: “He’s dressed for work.” (He looks naked as the snow he was born in to me, but okay.)
Me, I was taking stock. I’ve been to the store exactly one time in the past two weeks. I’ve only been able to leave the farm once in the past two weeks. Normally, I fantasize about only having to leave the farm once every few weeks. I’m a homebody. I love to stay home. I’m always busy, never bored, and completely content at home. The only way that could happen, though, would be if either I had no children, homeschooled my children, or waited till my children grew up. Winter on the farm blew right past those usual prerequisites.
This is hardly my first winter in West Virginia. I lived in the old farmhouse for three winters before moving to our new farm. But the old farmhouse was a far different story. In the country as it is (in fact, only a few miles from here), it’s on a “hard road”–practically a major thoroughfare by rural standards. (If you can call a one-lane country road a major thoroughfare. And, well, around here, sometimes we do….) The road our new farm is on is something else. It’s a “rock-based” road. It is actually county-maintained, but I think the county mostly forgets about that. There are far more travelled roads to be concerned with first. Snowy weather–icy weather–or flooding–gets us stuck here, stuck in a way that was unimaginable at the old farmhouse.
I keep a good stock of food onhand at all times. I like having food onhand. I like food. We have plenty to eat. Really, there’s just one thing bothering me. I’m almost out of aluminum foil. Do I need aluminum foil? Really? YES. YES, I DO. I’M ADDICTED TO ALUMINUM FOIL. I’ve been rationing aluminum foil. We are on an aluminum foil conservation plan. No one can use aluminum foil without running it past the committee (me) and getting permission. And certainly if aluminum foil is used, it must be used twice if not three times. We don’t know when we can get aluminum foil again. Next time I can get near a store, like in March, I’m going to buy 50 rolls of aluminum foil. In fact, I might be a little obsessed with aluminum foil right now. What is life without aluminum foil?
Yesterday, we worried about snow. Last night, we worried about ice. Today, we’re worried about flooding. One way or another, we may lose electricity. We’re already so snowed under, iced under, and flooded under, we have no idea when we’ll get out.
Send aluminum foil.
Clover: “SEND COOKIES!!!”
