It's Cold Outside

January behaved just as I expected last week. She brought us snow and bitter cold, some hard bright mornings, and some soft pearly sunrises and sunsets. She teased us with a thaw on Thursday when we hit 44°and then plunged us to 5° below zero on Friday night. Yesterday the thermometer only rose to 10°. But then it got even colder. Although I dislike it, I’m always impressed by how beautiful cold weather can be. When the temperature hovers at zero, amazing things happen. The night sky, on a very cold and cloudless night, is ablaze with stars. When the air is so cold, they shine with a clear sharp light and do not twinkle. The Milky Way on freezing cold nights is miraculous to behold. It seems like you can see all 100 billion stars. Unfortunately, you can only endure standing outside for a few minutes to enjoy it.

A sunset last week.

Sunrise on Tuesday.

Sunrise on Saturday.

Sunrise on Saturday.

This is not my photo, but the Milky Way looks like this here sometimes.

Frost on these freezing mornings is spectacular. When I go out to fill the bird feeders in the mornings, I always examine the frost patterns on the windows on the back porch and the woodshed. They are more beautiful and intricate than any man-made pattern I’ve ever seen. Frost seems fragile when it appears as fractal lacework on a pane of glass, but it has fabulous hidden strength. I’ve seen it shatter glass and crack and split hard rock.

Frosted back porch window.

Frosted back porch window.

Frosted woodshed window.

Last week, when I had the time to listen, I found myself drawn to the music of Antonio Vivaldi. I started with his most well known work, The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) and then, hungry for more, I went on from there. He’s not a composer I listen to a lot and I don’t know why that is. When I do listen to him, I always wonder why I don’t do it more often. Last week his music was just what I needed – it was warm and rich, melodious, intricate, harmonious, and so Italian. I suppose my attraction to it was due in part to that Italian connection. Imagining being in Venice on a frosty morning in Gold is very appealing.

Antonio Vivaldi

I usually find myself thinking of these coldest days of the year as dead days, but I’m wrong. There might not be anything happening in the world of gardening, but there is so much life in the world even now. From the first gray morning light to the last of evening’s twilight, there are birds at the feeders. And when I go out, I see ample evidence in the snow that rabbits, squirrels, deer, cats, and mice have visited my yard. Down on the bank by the road there are tiny holes, the openings to some small creatures’ dens, and on freezing cold mornings, the moisture from their breath forms frost crystals around the holes. I don’t know what animals are sleeping there, but I marvel when I see their breath caught in ice.

Tiny bird tracks on the front porch.

Frozen breath on the mystery animal's den.

Another den.

Down in the barn, things are always lively. During these coldest days of winter, I keep the chickens shut inside their coop. Closing the coop helps hold in what little warmth there is in the barn. And it keeps the wild birds out. During the winter if the coop door is open, house sparrows and starlings invade the barn even more than they do during the warm days. They eat up the chickens’ food and foul their waterers with their droppings and they can bring diseases to my flock. Last Monday I’d finally had enough and I closed the coop up. Before I could, I had to chase several dozen sparrows and ten starlings out before I shut the door. On Tuesday when I went into the barn, there were twenty or more starlings inside. I was baffled as to how they got in with the door shut. I opened all the doors and chased them all out. I was pretty mad. I looked around and found a narrow gap between one of the big doors and its frame. Thinking that had to be their point of entry, I blocked it with a piece of wire fence. Even then, on Wednesday there were more starlings inside the coop and I had to think of another way to keep them out. When Miriam got home that afternoon, I had her help me staple netting across the front of the barn under the eaves where there were small gaps. I thought that would do the trick, but on Thursday I had to chase out one starling and on Friday and yesterday there were three. I have no idea how they are still getting in. The battle is ongoing and I’m determined I will win it. Wild birds can come to the bird feeders, but they are not welcome inside the barn.

The chickens don’t like being closed in. They complain to me when I go in to tend them, but it’s for their own good. I do let them out on days when the weather warms a bit. Although egg production has slowed a little, they are still giving me 10 to 15 eggs a day. There was a time until a few years ago when I got no eggs during the winter, but then I discovered that if I don’t allow their water to freeze, the chickens will keep laying eggs even during the dark days. So several years ago I got water heaters for them and now I get eggs all winter.

Two day's worth of eggs.

As I was filling the bird feeders one bitterly cold morning last week, standing in the snow, shivering, with the temperature near zero, I found myself wondering about the phrase “bitter cold.” My mind often catches onto bits of language like that and I have to follow them to their end. Consulting my Etymological Dictionary, I found that although we most often use it to describe one of our five taste sensations – bitter, salty, sour, sweet, and umami – bitter has a variety of other, somewhat related meanings. We usually think of bitter tasting things as being disagreeable. Many toxic substances taste bitter, but most people find a bit of bitterness is also pleasurable. It rounds out our flavor palate and adds complexity. Lots of delicious foods, like leafy green vegetables, grapefruit, and chocolate have bitter overtones. But why “bitter cold”? We don’t sense cold with our taste buds. Our word “bitter” comes from the Old English word biter meaning “having a harsh taste,” which in turn traces its roots back to the Proto-Indo-European word bheid- “to split,” which is also the source of the Old English word bitan “to bite.” Eventually the meaning of bitter drifted from “biting, or acrid-tasting” to its more figurative meanings pertaining to a state of mind. Things that make us unhappy or angry or seem cruel, are bitter to us. Therefore, we cry bitterly, we regret bitterly, we complain bitterly. And that’s why cruel temperatures below zero that make me unhappy are bitterly cold.

It was pretty cold, but not bitterly so, on Wednesday morning when we had our septic tank pumped. Mr. Lehman, the man who provides this service, arrived at 10:00. Unfortunately, the cap to the septic tank that we dug out last week was the wrong cap. I had a lesson on septic tank construction while Mr. Lehman and I located and dug out the right cap. It turns out that tanks like ours have two chambers, the solids chamber and the liquids chamber, each with its own access cap. We’d dug up the cap to the liquids chamber and we needed to dig up the solids chamber cap. It took some prodding and chopping – the ground was frozen five inches deep – but we found and uncovered the cap. Kurt came over and helped. Then as Mr. Lehman connected his hoses and continued the process, we had a nice chat. We discussed some of the troubles in the world, a bit of local news, we did some philosophizing. I never knew pumping sewage could be so pleasant. When he finished here, Mr. Lehman went next door and serviced the Shillig’s tank too.

A visit from Mr. Lehman.

After Mr. Lehman left, I spent the rest of the day working on sign orders. I had two orders I needed to finish so Stacey could ship them. A large part of my time when I’m working on signs is actually spent waiting for paint to dry. During that wait time, I could go and do something else, but if I do that, I often get so involved with the something else that I forget to get back to the painting. So I usually stay in the workroom and watch something while I wait. My favorite thing to watch is the BBC show The Repair Shop. Their official blurb reads:

“The Repair Shop is a workshop of dreams, where broken or damaged cherished family heirlooms are brought back to life. Furniture restorers, horologists, metal workers, ceramicists, upholsterers and all manner of skilled craftsmen and women have been brought together to work in one extraordinary space, restoring much-loved possessions to their former glory.”

The show is now in its ninth season and I’ve watched every episode so far. I love this show. I always have to have a box of tissues handy because I’m often moved to tears by the stories they tell and the wonderful work they do. I did finish my orders and Stacey got them ready to ship yesterday, one is going to Clarksburg, down in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and the other is going to Minnesota.

Miriam arrived home on Wednesday afternoon. It’s nice to have her home again. As soon as she got here, I put her to work. She helped me down at the barn with my anti-starling campaign. Then she and I loaded firewood onto the back porch. Now that she’s back, she has resumed baking. She baked an angel food cake and some pastries. She made us some excellent ice cream. She keeps us supplied with delicious sourdough bread.

Here in the coldest days of the winter so far, I have flowers blooming. My amaryllises are at their peak now. And one of my orchids has begun to bloom. I go into the music room several times a day to just look at them. They make me so happy.

My amaryllises.

My white amaryllis close up.

My pink amaryllis close up.

My blooming orchid.

My orchid close up.

It was -7° when I got up this morning, but when I checked my little backyard weather station, it told me that it hit -10° last night. The first thing I did was stoke up the wood stove. There were some nice red coals still glowing and with a few new logs, it burst into flame. Our wonderful wood stove gives off great heat. I didn’t want to leave the warm house and go out into the frozen world, but it’s Sunday and we went to church. When we got back, I vowed I wouldn’t go out again, but then there are chores to do in a bit. After the chores, I swear I’m not going out again. Besides, we are under another Winter Storm Advisory. It looks like we have a 100% chance of heavy snow with more than a foot expected. Maybe I won’t go out tomorrow either.