November Adventures

Of the four seasons, autumn is the one given short shrift here. The calendar allots it ninety-two days just like the other three seasons, but nature cheats it and, if we're lucky, we'll get half that. Winter, the bully season, pushes its way in early, as it did last week. There was still a bit of lingering color here and there. The larches hadn't completely lost their gold. The rusty reds of the oaks still clung to patches on the hills. But then it all went away. The earth shifted. The sunlight went oblique and lost its heat. The world slid into winter with a frigid sigh. Monday morning we woke up to find snow on the ground. There wasn't a lot, not enough to be really pretty, just enough to make me cringe and then shiver.

Monday morning.

Monday morning.

When it was time to do the morning chores, I remembered that I no longer have to lug buckets of slop out to the pigpen. That made me happy. Down at the barn, the chickens were not happy. They didn't want to go out in the snow. I had to throw their morning scratch down inside on the coop floor. That's how it will be from now on.

One of the few things I find useful about snow is that it reveals the comings and goings of animals. That morning when I went down into the coop to check the waterers, I found a headless hen. So after two skunks and a possum, there was still something killing my chickens. Upon inspecting the snow outside the coop, I found tracks leading from the coop, across the road, to the beaver pond. The tracks were degraded and I couldn't see the paw prints, just the gait. I suspect it's another skunk. Or possibly a weasel, although weasels usually leave more carnage behind. I set the live trap again, this time using a salmon cake as bait.

I came back to the house and stood for a while at the window in the music room, looking out past my houseplants at the snowy garden and orchard. I was in a mood. I needed some music, but what? Something soothing? dramatic? emotional? stirring? melancholic? All of those things? It had to be Chopin. And it had to be his Four Ballades. Here is my favorite of the four, the Ballade No. 4 in F minor, played by my favorite pianist, Sviatoslav Richter. Listen and you'll see what I mean.

I had an acupuncture appointment later that morning. When I got home, it was snowing and I didn't feel motivated to do much of anything. I ate lunch, then sat down to read and dozed off. There were plenty of things I could have done, but the snow seemed like a good excuse to be lazy. Our neighbor Ray the plumber came by a little later to look at our furnace. It hasn't been working right again. We often need to stomp on it to get it to turn on. Ray concluded that the problem is the ancient and twisted span of wire that connects the thermostat to the furnace. He didn't have what he needed to fix it then. He'll be back sometime this week. Until then, we'll keep stomping.

There was more snow on Tuesday morning. It had snowed during the night and there was more coming down when I went out before dawn to check my trap. We had at least two inches on the ground. The trap was empty and there were no animal tracks around the barn. 

Tuesday morning, deeper snow.

I came back to the house for scripture reading and family prayer, then bundled up and went back down to the barn to work. First I did the regular chores, filled the feeders and the waterers. Then I tackled other tasks. I'd had such big plans for winterizing the barn – tilling up the floor, whitewashing the walls, washing the windows – but I waited too long for warmer, dryer weather that never came. And I never did get the tiller to start. So now I had to switch to my minimum Plan B. I gave the windows a dry wipe down with a broom to get rid of some of the dust and cobwebs. I did a quick rake of the coop floor and put down new straw. I did some needed repairs on the nesting boxes and filled them with fresh straw. The snow had covered the solar panel that powers the automatic coop door, so it wasn't working. I switched it from solar to the electric line I'd run down the week before. The line across the yard that was now buried under snow. I'm glad I had it already in place. Their waterers were frozen, so I set up the water heaters. That will have to do until spring when I can resume my more ambitious plans.

Fresh straw in the nesting boxes.

The whole time I was working, the guineas were making a lot of noise. I don't know if it was happy noise or upset noise. I just know it was noisy.

The roads were snowy and the plows were late in coming by, so Stacey and Hannah left late for work. While waiting for the plow, Stacey lit the woodstove for the first time and then sat by it and read until the roads were clear. With the stove now lit, I spent part of the rest of the day keeping it going, carrying wood in from the back porch. It made the house feel very wintry cozy.

With the coming of the snow, everything changes. The casualness of warmer days is gone, no more simply dashing out to do something. The chores become more chore-ish. Now going down to the barn involves putting on extra layers of clothing, hat, gloves, and boots before, and then taking them all off again when I come inside while trying not to track in snow and other barn debris. The rain barrel is unreliable now, many mornings the ice on it is too thick to break, so I must carry water down from the house, two five gallon buckets. At forty pounds each, I suppose it's good exercise. Maybe I should try curling them as I walk. Probably not. And now, before we go anywhere, we have to allow extra time to brush snow off the car, shovel off the porch stairs, or dig out the driveway. Nothing is easy in winter.

We had plans for the weekend and, as usually happens, they underwent several changes. Originally, Miriam was driving down early. She was leaving on Wednesday. Stacey, Hannah, and I were going down on Friday afternoon. Then Kale asked if she could go down too with her two children. So the plan changed. Now I was going with Miriam on Wednesday and the others would go down in Kale's van on Friday. Sarah and Tosh and Maverick were also mixed into the revised travel plans. Now that I was leaving on Wednesday, I had to make new preparations. Being gone from Wednesday to Sunday was a long time to be away from my flock. I needed to have all the feeders and waterers filled to capacity before I left and then Stacey would have to top them off before she left on Friday. I was running low on feed, so that meant a trip to the feed store. I got all of that done on Wednesday morning. Miriam and I left home at 1:00. She drove, I dozed most of the way.

We arrived at the Thayn's house at 4:00 p.m. The Fosters arrived on Thursday. Stacey and Hannah with Kale and her two children arrived on Friday. Our time there was hectic and fun. The main reason for this trip was to see Hazel, June, and Mabel in the play they were in Shrek, the Musical. On Thursday they had a final rehearsal, then they had two performances on Friday and Saturday at 1:00 and 6:00 p.m. Miriam was backstage at the play helping with hair and makeup for most of the performances. Hazel had several parts, including a singing part as the teenage Fiona. June was Cinderella and Mabel was Gretel. This was Mabel's first play, Hazel and June's fifth. They did a great job. I went to see the matinee performances on Friday with Rachel and the Fosters and Saturday with Stacey, Hannah, Kale and children. It was a very funny play, very clever, and all the kids did a great job with singing and dancing and acting.

Shrek, the Musical.

The three Fionas, young, grown, teenage (Hazel).

June and Mabel as Cinderella and Gretel.

After the play.

Saturday evening some of us went into Pittsburgh to the Phipps Conservatory to see their Christmas display. The Phipps is a fourteen room greenhouse conservatory with outdoor botanical gardens. For Christmas, they decorate the greenhouse with beautiful plantings and lights. The outdoor gardens are spectacular with lights. We walked through oohing and aahing at it all.

Going into the Phipps Conservatory.

One of the rooms.

One of the outdoor trees.

At the Phipps.

This morning we were going to go to church with the Thayn's, but we checked the weather and saw that they had issued a winter storm advisory for Potter County with the possibility of up to four inches of snow. We opted to head straight home to see if we could beat it. We left Thayn's around 8:30 and arrived home half an hour ago. There was no significant snow until we crossed into Potter County, and even then, it was just light flurries. So far. According to the forecast, there's still more on the way.

So we had a great weekend. It was wonderful to be with family and see those talented girls in their play. In two weeks we will be gathering here for Thanksgiving and it will be great to be together again. I love it when we are together.