Monday, November 13, 2006, 21:00
Ten-Ton Feet
It snowed again last night. The snow from the other day had all melted, but last night we got another two inches of heavy, wet snow.
This morning I decided to dig out my old winter clodhopper boots. I figured I'd better wear those rather than getting my leather workboots soaking wet.
Interestingly enough, when I took Charlie for a walk around the hayfield, the snow was wet enough that it didn't stick to his feet. Well, it did stick. Just not as much as the other day. Instead of baseball size snowballs on the backs of Charlie's feet, he only had 50-cent piece size snowballs on his feet. And 50-cent piece size snowballs are nothing to worry about, as far as Charlie is concerned.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for myself. Even though the snow did not stick to Charlie's feet, it *did* stick to my feet. By the time I got around the hayfield, I had handfuls of wet snow stuck to my boots. I felt as if each foot weighed a hundred pounds.
That's often the case in the winter. I find myself dragging heavy boots around that also have snow clinging to them.
Later this afternoon, I am going to have to scrape heavy, wet snow off my truck windows. I was hoping it would slide off today, but it didn't. I have to cover a school board meeting tonight, and I don't want to be chipping ice off the windows when I'm ready to leave. Brushing slushy snow off the windows will be much easier.
I can't complain, though. The heavy, wet snow -- even though it wasn't very much of it -- will at least go a tiny way toward recharging the ground water. And after the drought of last summer, combined with the drought of this fall, combined with the drought of the last few years, every little bit is important.
Snowflake -- I think Snowflake had a growth spurt over the weekend. I see her all the time, but it seems to me she is bigger than she was on Friday. Every day she is also trying to play a little bit more. Within the next few weeks (knock on wood and God willing) she is going to turn into a "pudgy mean playing machine." I can't say "lean mean playing machine" because she is getting all she wants to eat -- so I don't think she's exactly lean.
This morning, she was pretending to bite my fingers (can you bite something if you don't have teeth?). I pulled my hand a few inches away, and she actually lunged at my hand and said. . ."psssst!" And then jumped back to her original position. I couldn't help but laugh. It was her first "kitten spit." When she got back to where she had been before, she looked around as if she were thinking, "did *I* do that?"
"Yes, Snowflake," I said. "You spit at me!"
She hissed at me the other day when I pulled the blanket back off the box. It shows she is becoming more aware of her surroundings and that she is starting to be able to see better. When I said, "Snowflake! You hissed at me!" she recognized my voice and was a happy kitten again.
Sunday afternoon, I bought another heating pad for her box. The original heating pad had been on for over two weeks straight, and I figured it needed a break.
Do you know how hard it is to find a heating pad that does not have an automatic shut-off after an hour or two? I finally found one that you can set to either automatic shut-off or you can set it to stay on all the time. It cost $15 more than the automatic shut-off heating pad, but I'm sure that Snowflake will appreciate it. I don't want her to get cold. Kittens can stand a lot. But they can't stand getting cold.
Where the Green Grass Grows -- With any luck at all, I will have copies of my new book, Where the Green Grass Grows -- True (Spring and Summer) Stories from a Wisconsin Farm available within the next couple of weeks!
LeAnn R. Ralph
Friday, November 10, 2006, 20:49
Winter Wonderland and the Armistice Day Blizzard. . .
"Come here, Charlie!" I called.
But Charlie would not come. Even though I was a third of the way down the hayfield this morning, Charlie was still sitting by the garden.
"Come here, Charlie!" I called again.
"Woof!" said Pixie, who came racing out of the barn. She was once again nosing around by Kajun's feed box to see if he had dropped some of his molasses crumbles.
"Come here, Pixie!" I yelled.
"Woof!" said Pixie.
Because of the barn, I could not see Pixie, and I wanted a half a minute before calling again.
"Come here, Pixie!" I yelled.
It was then that I noticed Pixie had gone up to the house. She must not have been able to tell what direction the sound was coming from.
"Come here, Pixie!" I yelled again.
"Woof!" Pixie said, racing down the hill toward the garden. She raced past Charlie lickety-split and tore down the path in the hayfield toward me.
Charlie never moved a muscle.
Pixie ran at top speed the whole way and slid to a stop in front of me.
"Good girl!" I said, reaching for a piece of dog food. I always carry dog food in my coat pocket (doesn't everyone?).
I resumed my walk down the hayfield.
Charlie remained sitting by the garden.
You see -- it is snowing today. And I had a pretty idea of why Charlie did not want to come for a walk.
By the time I reached the end of the hayfield and had started back along the south side, Charlie had come halfway down the hayfield and then cut across to meet up with me.
Sure enough, as Charlie trotted up the path of ahead of me, I could see the problem had already started.
The snow is wet and heavy, and while there was only an inch on the ground this morning, from just a walk across the hayfield, Charlie had snowballs the size of baseballs clinging to his feet.
Snow was packed between his toes on his front feet, too. And I would imagine he had snowballs underneath his belly.
This is not the first snow we've had this fall. It might turn out to be heaviest snow we've had so far, though. The weather forecast is calling for anywhere from 2 to 8 inches, depending on location.
I talked to Randy at 11:30 a.m., and he said the ground was covered in town and that he couldn't see any grass.
On the news this morning, the weather forecaster reported that Eau Claire already had four inches on the ground.
There's just a dusting here, really. About an inch at noon is all. It's snowing steadily, but it's not accumulating much.
On the local television channel this morning, they interviewed someone who remembered the great Armistice Day blizzard of Nov. 11, 1940. The man was a child then, but he remembered the blizzard. Two of his brothers had gone out duck hunting along the Mississippi. The man didn't go because he thought it was too warm for duck hunting. The day started out warm, but then the weather deteriorated.
The blizzard hit, and his brothers were stranded on an island. When they tried to push a boat across the ice to get to them, the man broke through and fell into water up to his chest.
He said it took them 24 hours, but they finally rescued his brothers.
Unfortunately, 20 other duck hunters were not so lucky. The blizzard killed 20 duck hunters.
The man said he did not know how his brothers managed not to freeze their hands or feet, but they didn't
I remember my dad talking about the Armistice Day blizzard of 1940. I've heard other people talk about it, too. They say that they had never seen a snowstorm like that before -- and not since.
When the man was asked if they went duck hunting after that, he said they did, but that they always carried extra clothing with them and provisions to last for a couple of days, and that they kept a sharp eye on the weather.
After the blizzard of 1940, winters around here were filled with lots of snow. Older folks around here say they remember that after the roads were plowed, snow would be piled almost as high as the telephone wires. They say it would snow and snow and snow all winter long, and that at the end of March it would warm up, the snow would melt, the ground would dry out and they would be planting oats in April.
After the drought during the Great Depression, the snowy winters and the summers of thunderstorms that would rain two or three or four inches at a time were welcome. I remember that it used to rain so much during the summer that the dirt road where I live now would would wash out with big gullies that you could not drive a tractor over.
The snow continued during the 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s. When my mother was in the hospital with polio in 1942, my dad would walk cross country to the little country grocery store not far away. There was so much snow, he used to say, that you couldn't see where the fences were. And I have a picture of a tractor sitting in our driveway during the 1960s, and the snow, on the level is practically as high as the tractor tire.
During those years of high snowfall, snowmobiles became all the rage. Trails were cut everywhere, and people drove snowmobiles when they could instead of cars.
It pretty much stopped snowing in the 1970s. And it really hasn't snowed much since then. Not really. Every year around here, the snowmobile clubs mark their trails and get permission from landowners, but there generally isn't enough snow for the trails to be open for more than one or two weekends.
When we moved here in 1995, those first two winters we got 85 and 86 inches of snow.
It hasn't snow much since then.
Are we generally in a drought condition that will break eventually? Or is this the result of global warming -- the desertification of the Midwest?
I suppose I could do some research -- but I've always wondered what the explanation was for the severe drought during the Great Depression. At that time, it couldn't have had anything to do with global warming.
At any rate, it is snowing here today. I don't really expect that it will snow much. The weather pattern is still too dry. The other day I heard on the weather forecast that this fall was the most dry on record. It has rained some this fall, but not much. A quarter inch. Maybe a half inch. But not very often.
And if the weather pattern remains true to form, the Twin Cities will get a foot of snow, but it only snow an inch or two here.
Snowflake -- Baby Snowflake is starting to groom herself. It is hilarious! She slurps down a bunch of formula. Then she wants to lie in my lap and wave her legs around and pretend she is biting my hand. (No teeth yet, so she's not really biting; just thinks she is). She slurps down some more formula, then she lies in my lap and tries to groom her front legs.
In just a few weeks, she will probably be able to groom herself well enough to get the sticky formula out of her fur. That's always a problem with tiny kittens. They get sticky formula in their fur, and then they're all crusty and icky. In the past, I have tried wiping them off with a washcloth, but it doesn't help much. What really helps is when they get big enough to clean themselves off.
I brought Snowflake into the house two weeks ago today.
So far, so good.
LeAnn R. Ralph