Day: January 19, 2011

The donkeys are struggling a bit, in the storm. Maria brings them apples and carrots every morning, and Lulu is always waiting for her.

There’s definitely a lot to be said for this marriage thing. I love being married for all kinds of reasons, but I especially love being married during snowstorms. This is something I always used to try and do, and I have the sore back to prove it. My former girlfriend is sometimes something of a chore freak – she moves like an animated rabbit sometimes, so fast she’s a blur,  and dishes are washed, things put away, moved and animals fed and watered – before I can even get my boots on.

She loves to shovel snow, which is something of a miracle to me. In these moods, which come and go, she cannot leave a chore undone. I have only to mention there’s a lot of snow out there, and she’s gone. She thinks I shouldn’t be shoveling, because of my back, so she grabs the shovel and snow flies all over the place. Since she feels strongly about it, I have little choice but to accede.

As a photographer and blog supervisor, it is critical that I keep a perspective and capture the feel of a storm, thus I am too busy being creative to move too much snow around. Photographing this is difficult, and I usually have to come in and have some tea and ponder things. I like being married.

The dogs can hardly wade through the heavy drifts. Lenore managed to dig through it all and find something revolting to eat. Izzy and Rose were slowed by iceballs on their fur. Frieda pulled up trees and dragged them around.

This is a purposeful winter, announcing itself with authority, unrelenting, an old-fashioned kind of a winter, the kind the old farmers always talk about, the way it used to be from November through March. It is too much for the hardy donkeys, who struggle with the ice and the cold, and who need to come in for the night to warm up, dry off, and be brushed and cosseted with grain and some corn. Lulu and Fanny come rushing in at night, and they will be in for most of this very cold weekend.

Driving through the quiet farms, I am always drawn to the magic of the winter pasture, an eerily beautiful, cold and swept place, waiting to return to busy and smelly and productive life. The snow sparkles in the increasingly bitter cold, the wind sweeps the pasture smooth, and the drifting snow suggests a world that stops and gathers itself, unlike the rest of our increasingly frantic, always busy, always communicative culture. Much worse cold is coming this weekend, and I am eager to be out walking in it, to capture the beautiful barrenness and strength of the winter pasture.