commacomma down doobie do down down...

Winter's coming.

Sunday night we're supposed to get snow.

Comma comma down doobie do down down... come on down....

It's been getting gradually cooler here, as each successive low front passes through. If it does snow, it means that winter this year will be hard; and as we go, so goes the country.

But not all snow is bad. Snow is precipitation; and snow provides the water to our river and our underground aquifer. We got so much precipitation this past spring - more than in any recent memory - that the river, normally pumped almost dry for irrigation and cattle, is still running fairly high. There were two hay harvests instead of one, so the winter feed is going to be good, which means that the cattle will be fat. (So will the wild critters.) Snow acts as an insulating blanket if the temps drop below freezing. (It doesn't snow when it is below freezing - it just gets that way after the front passes.)

I'll still be walking to work every day; the high school is across the street and down a block. Part of the reason they hired me is that, on snow days, I can go to school early and call within my snow ring, to tell parents not to bring their kids or let them drive on dangerous roads. That sounds harsh, but I'm looking forward to it. The folks here in town will come in anyway, and make sure that the power and generators are on and that the heat is running to keep the pipes from freezing. The cooks will come in. If it gets really bad, and power fails for a while, the school is the shelter for the elderly to stay warm and fed.

Back at the house, I'm all set. The wood box on the house is full of dry tinder, kindling, and logs; I open the door next to the woodstove and there it all is, ready to start the fires. I can cook on or even IN a woodstove; done it. I can build a fire and keep it going for three days in the pouring rain; I've made a fire so hot in a cast iron stove that the stove turns red all the way up to the pipe. And this firebox is small, which means that I can get it really hot, and it won't take much to get it that way and keep it that way.

My new friends (and some of my old friends)are all very worried about how two southerners will weather the winters here. Cracks me up. We didn't live down south our whole lives, and a couple of places I've lived in the winter didn't have electricity run to them. We've spent the whole summer tightening every air and cold leak in this house; securing the barn roofs from the cold and harsh north winds. We know what's coming. We know what to expect.

I'm looking forward to it, actually. While my friends back east will be sweating in their tree stands, I'll be tracking my deer and antelope through the snow. When I make my kill, I won't be dragging it through mud and skeeters, but sliding it on frozen ground and snow. And the turkeys are fat and pretty on the hill already; we saw them yesterday morning.

This week I have to finish raking the leaves and pile them around my plants and dig my amarillis and star lily bulbs; everything else will be buried under leafy mulch. Finishing up the Halloween yard decorations, and looking forward to the Christmas ones! If it freezes this week, the potato farm down south will swing into harvest, and I'll get a 50 lb sack of potatoes (not the little nubs we used to get back east; BIG tubers the size of your two fists held together) and put them in the basement next to the other food storage.

Winter's coming. And this little squirrel is getting her nest ready for it... and the big devastating financial hits that are predicted to go into full swing this winter will roll over us like the snow. Preparation is always a good thing.