Welcome to the year of the Fire Pig …
Things have been a tad strange at Casa Scully on this first day of January. We awoke to find a light crust of ice over the house, car, and driveway. I had been hoping we might find an excuse to drive in to town for a nice breakfast, but with all the ice, it made more sense to scrounge up something at home. Just as I was about to scramble some eggs and make some toast, the power went out. Without our electric range, we had to put the meal on hold. Fortunately, we had a few home-made biscotti left over from our trip, and the coffee had finished brewing.
After a light breakfast, we decided to go on our first snowshoe expedition of the season. Rick and I would have preferred to have four feet of snow on the ground, but with the warm winter we’ve had so far, we decided to take advantage of the five inches we did have. We tromped about on our property a bit, found some animal tracks (most likely rabbits and deer), and then proceeded to trespass on our neighbors’ fields. By the time we returned home the power had been restored. The lights on the porch were a welcome sign as we made our way back up the steep, icy driveway.
Sometimes, you have to improvise or jump in to a situation even when conditions are not exactly what you’d like them to be. This year we have a lot of plans that we want to try to put into play, and we’ll most likely need to be flexible in order to have success. Here’s hoping that at least a few of our ideas will come to fruition.
Muttluk Love …
When we first told our friends in Maryland that we planned to move to Vermont, most responded by asking “how will you deal with the cold!?” Since we honestly had no clue what the answer to this question was, we eventually established a sort of party line response: “We don’t mind the cold, it’s the commuting in the cold that we don’t like.” This is true. Sarah and I are both more comfortable when we are cold than when we are hot, whether it is inside or out. We also hated commuting to our jobs in the city on cold days.
On cold works days we had to bundle up to walk a mile to the Silver Spring Metro stop, where most days we had to wait on the elevated platform while the wind whipped around us. Once we were on a train, it would inevitably be blasting the heat, and as more people got on at each subsequent stop the train would get very warm. The fact that more people took public transportation on colder days—especially if it was snowy or icy—meant that in addition to being hot, one would have a great deal of difficulty removing layers for the 30-45 minute ride due to the extra bodies, all of whom were wearing extra layers themselves.
Once we arrived at our respective stops, we had to walk various distances to our offices, again bundling up against the cold and or wind. Once at our offices, we would strip our layers to work. I can’t speak for Sarah’s office, but mine was frequently warmer than I would have liked. (My office mate next door to me, however, was always cold and blasted the heat in her office.) If we didn’t bring lunch, we had to also bundle up to go out for food as well. At the end of the day, we’d turn around and do it all again in reverse.
A good snow job …
By nature snow is both beautiful and treacherous. It can cover the earth in a blanket of white, creating an unscheduled holiday for children, adults, and more importantly, an already edgy community. Plus, it makes sledding much easier. It can even make folks think they are better drivers than they really are. It forces us to stay put, then taunts us until we must get out!
This, to me, is when the beauty of a snowstorm occurs: as we dig out. As we collectively make our way out of our snowy cocoon, like baby turtles emerging from buried nests. When neighbors join together for a group archaeological dig, that feels like an old-fashioned block party, and in the process become both acquainted and reacquainted with one another.
Overall, it was a wonderful birthday blizzard.