Monthly Archives: November 2010

Taking the weather a day at a time

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    The forecast for this week, which includes the potential for another storm, is pretty disheartening. Though we had a long, beautiful fall, I’m not mentally ready to face winter. The prospect of dealing with snowy roads and poor visibility for the next five months is pretty depressing.

    I was starting to feel pretty down for awhile today about the forecast and the possibility that our Thanksgiving table may have five guests instead of more than four times that many. Then I reminded myself that sometimes the forecasters get it wrong, and even if they don’t, a stormy week does not necessarily mean that the entire winter will be that way.

    So instead of counting down the days until April, I decided to take it a day at a time and deal with the weather as it comes. As one of my favorite lines from an episode of the children’s video “Little Bear,” says “Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot, we’ll whether the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.”

   Now, I’m off to whether the weather and the roads. I hope that the snow has been drifting across the gravel roads and hasn’t stuck to them or I may be plowing a path with my car. At least by the time I get to the gravel, I’m within a half dozen miles of home and can call my husband to pull me out with the pickup if I get stuck.

Ready, but not waiting

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After a beautiful October and first half of November, I got a reality check this week when the temperatueres dipped and the wind speed climbed. For the first time since early last spring the water in the horse’s tank froze and we had to put in a tank heater. Meanwhile, my children had to dig out their snow pants, boots, hats and gloves.

   A check of the inventory found that the boots that had kept our two youngest children’s feet warm last winter were too small to do duty again this year. I wasn’t surprised. The two seem to need new shoes about every six months and it’s been at least six since they wore the boots.

   Yesterday I headed to a local store and bought a pair of pink boots for my daughter and black ones for my son I also bought a pair of mostly black ones for myself. They’re much more comfortable than the pair I had and will keep my feet toasty on my trips between home and work.

    I also bought a pair of cheap black gloves. The gloves are pretty thin, but a pair of new ones are on my birthday lists. Gloves are an annual birthday gift that my husband buys. I can’t remember the last time I made it from one December to the next with the same pair of gloves.

       I was feeling pretty proud of myself last year when I still had my birthday gloves in mid-February. However, my son, who had borrowed my gloves, left them at a sporting event in a neighboring town in late February, and that’s the last time I ever saw them.

        With a pair of new, albeit cheap gloves, warm boots and winter coat, I’m ready for winter. However, if the snow  forecast for this weekend doesn’t fall and temperatures warm I won’t be feel bad. The longer my winter gear stays stashed, the better as far as I’m concerned.

Whistling in the dark

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    This morning when I went outside to feed the horses, I could tell something was capturing their attention because Zammie, Isabelle and Freda were gallopping around the corral and snorting. A few minutes later, after I’d fed Zammie her sweeet feed, she ran over to the far end of the corral and was whistling through her nose as she stood, ears erect, looking south.

    An unharvested corn field that earlier had been sheltering a moose and her twin calves lies to the south outside of our farmstead, so I suspect that may have been what was attracting the horses’ attention. Or it could have been deer that sensed that hunting was going to begin at noon today and were seeking shelter in the farmstead grove just beyond the horse’s corral. I suppose it could even have been the coyotes that like to harass our dogs.

    Whatever the critter(s), it made the horses skittish, although hey don’t need much excuse to react to things by taking flight on these cool, crisp fall mornings. The weather makes them even peppier than normal.

    When I get home tonight from work it should be light enough to see what the horses were excited about. I hope it’s the moose or deer, not coyotes. I don’t mind the coyotes, but I’d rather they keep their distance. The moose and deer are welcome, anytime. In past years, moose have taken up residence in our farmstead shelterbelt during bad winter weather. They seem to like the company of the horses. The horses act pretty leery of the moose at first, but seem to get used to them after awhile.