The blizzard resulted in a whiteout, there were a number, on and off all day. Red will never lose focus or be deterred, I always keep an eye on him, but he almost vanished in the wind and snow, Red never bends, he does his work. He would sit out there all day if I let him. This photo was not overexposed. This is just what it looks like out there.
Like tens of millions of people in the Northeast, we are experiencing one of the most intense winter storms in memory. We are experiencing very high winds and driving snow – about a foot already and another foot expected over night. We gave up trying to shovel, the wind just obliterates the paths in a couple of minutes. The wind is shrieking outside and the animals are huddle in the Pole Barn, it will be a long night for them.
The good news is that the power is still on (fingers crossed) and this snow won’t be on the ground in a week or so. The bad news is here right now. We have the wood stoves going and are doing our work, I’m taking pictures, blogging and working on my book. It’s cozy and comfortable out here, our farmhouse is snug and tight, we have good food to eat.
Fate has never been in a storm like this, Red has been through many, the snow makes absolutely no difference to him. Another few minutes, and she would have been invisible. She still wouldn’t have moved.
Fate got her initiation as a Border Collie, we took the dogs out into the pasture to help feed the animals and I was in the Pole Barn for just a few minutes distributing the hay and when I came out, I could barely see her in the snow, the wind is driving it across the ground. Fate was nearly buried, but in true BC style, she was not budging, she was watching the sheep and toughing it out.
I brought her into the house, thawed her out, and she was right back at the door and we went out again to take photos and brush off the cars. This winter has been quite insane. More later. I am having fun taking photos in this, using several lenses, including my new Petzval. This show was with the monochrome.
I didn’t enjoy the last big snowstorm, Maria was in India. I felt a bit vulnerable and exposed and spent two or three days shoveling, making my friends nervous. People say people with heart disease ought not to shovel snow, but my cardiologist says otherwise. He says shovel as much snow as you want as long as it doesn’t hurt or make me uncomfortable.
The downside of that advice is if you get to hurting or being uncomfortable, that is not good. I shovel all the time, including the morning, it feels good and healthy. But having Maria here for this blizzard is a good thing, there is much less shoveling and I feel a bit less exposed.
I think vulnerability comes with getting older. Open heart surgery probably helps also. My daughter texts me during storms to make sure I am alive. She didn’t use to do that. My electric company sends texts messages to me advising me to stay indoors if I am over 65. I message them back and tell them to mind their own business, I didn’t ask for their opinion, but they never seem to get the message.
Are the animals supposed to starve? Will a good fairy come and dig out the car or the mailbox? Who will shovel out the hey feeders? Or haul water to the animals?
My daughter has a good excuse, she lives in Brooklyn, snowstorms affect just about nothing there. I don’t know where the Electric Company lives, it’s probably in New Jersey somewhere.
Maria and I have good fun in blizzards. I do stock up on good things to eat and popcorn, we have good books and Netflix and a bed with an electric blanket, one of our prize possessions in the winter. I keep assuring her I can keep her warm up there, but too late, she is in the studio conjuring up some magic.
I think this is the first genuine blizzard of the winter, it reminds me of the first winters I experienced here when I first came up. Massive and windswept snowstorms were a common feature of life here in the winter, and they are rare now, and subject to the greedy and profitable hysteria of the weather channels, which have weaponized winter and found a way to get rich off of it. The farmers never named storms or tracked them or knew all that much about them.
They were a feature of winter, if you don’t want big storms, they would say, move somewhere else. But the farmers never did. Winter always defined this place, and still does. Without blizzards and biting cold, Spring has less meaning, the distinctiveness of the seasons is one of the things I most love about being here.
Spring is so sweet, winter so mysterious and intimidating. We prepare for winter all year here, we still do. Up here, we know climate change is real but we can’t quite picture life without blizzards. In two or three weeks, I will start ordering firewood for next winter and place my hay order.
It’s supposed to snow until tomorrow afternoon, we’ll see. My bones say otherwise, I think we’ll get about a foot, not 24 inches and I think it will peter off sometime tonight. I have nothing to base that on but how much my frost-bitten fingers and goes (from previous winters) throb, and they tell me a foot.
I’m going to venture out ever few hours to brush off the cars, take some photos, look for the magic in every blizzard, our menu is good second cut hay, the expensive and rich stuff for energy, books and soup and I proposed to Maria that we get in bed this afternoon and read and snuggle. I give good massages, she says.
I believe in climate change, I know it is real, unlike some senior officials in our government, but it will never turn winter into something to fear for nme
Sometimes, I think my dogs are defined by the big storms they work in. Once, after I first got Red, there was a howling snowstorm and he was out with the sheep. And I had to go inside to make a photo call to the large animal vet, it was an emergency, one of the sheep was dying.
I made the call, and then some snow fell off the roof and I shoveled it out, and then my editor called and I had to go over some book notes, she was in a rush. I looked at the clock and realized I had left Red out in the pasture for two hours, I grabbed my coat and rushed outside to the pasture.
Red was right where I left him, covered in snow from top to bottom, only his eyes were showing. I’ve been careful not to do that again.
