Well, we are wrapping up our Storm Center Glorious Weather Alert. We are digging out, and last flurries are still falling. We had Pea Soup for lunch and used the can to bring out food to the barn cats, and then we saw how proud and photogenic this pea soup can was, against the Pig Barn. We went for it. Camera got wet and icy but given the bad light all day, did well.

So here’s our report.

We did not stay indoors.

We did not dress warmly.

We did not put out candles and flashlights.

Our toes are cold. And fingers too.

We can’t wait for the sun to hit the fresh snow, hopefully tomorrow.

I spent a little bit of time reading some of the old Farm Journals I collected several years ago, and which inspired the Bedlam Farm Journal.

There are many entries about storms. I remember reading of farmers and their families starving to death in heavy drifts, watching their animals die. waiting for help. There was never any warning about snowstorms, they just came bearing down.  And how the farm wives often burned themselves because of the long dresses they wore near the fires. And how the farmhouses burnt down so frequently because of the unsafe stoves and candles.

And the numerous accounts of accidents, and deaths due to colds and infections, especially among children, who would succumb quickly without antibiotics. And the difficulty of staying warm, hauling firewood, feeding animals, dealing with ice and snow and waste and cleanliness.

Perspective and history are everything sometimes, especially in an era when people’s attention spans rarely drift too long or too far. I loved my storm, and felt nothing but lucky and blessed to have it. In a sense, the natural world teaches us that we are strangers, intruders in another realm, and once in awhile, it rears up to remind us whose place this really is.