SnowBound

As much as I would love to not merely say spring has sprung, but shout it from the rooftops, that just isn't the case in my neck of the woods.  Spring isn't really due here for another six weeks at least, but that doesn't stop the bunnies from bombing every single photo I try to take.  We haven't quite figured out what to do with these fluffy little escapees, but if we don't get them back into their houses soon, they'll eat all my chammomile while it's still sprouting and that will likely be the end of my herb garden.  We still have a bit of time though as we just wrapped up yet another snow storm.

What started as a little snowstorm, turned into a snowy weekend, then into a snowday, then turned into being snowbound for a week.  Yes, that's right, we were snowed in together for a whole week.  Now, this wasn't really new for us, it usually happens once every year or at least every other year, but, I truly wasn't expecting it to happen so early in the year which makes me wonder if we'll have to do this more than once in 2024.

Being raised here, I've never been caught off guard by the weather since the one year when I was ten that we were out of electricity for ten days and in the end resorted to eating defrosted but still cold bean on bread.  Ever since then I have been keenly aware that life out here, and indeed anywhere, does involve a certain element of constant preparedness because should anything happen weather or pandemics or the like, we're just too far away from the city to easily or quickly make a last minute stock-up.   

 

The weather rolled through on a Friday morning.  I set to work making bread and stew, foods that could reheat easily over the wood stove should we lose electricity.  Did the vacuuming and the laundry so everything would be tidy, once again should we lose power but still be expected to go to work, we'll need clean clothes or if we stay home as we did, it's nice to be cooped up in an orderly, well kept home.  Then it was time to fill up some empty milk jugs with water for flushing toilets, watering animals, or washing dishes and hands.  The wood was all stacked on the porch, but with temperatures expected to be 30° below freezing, I knew we'd be using a lot of firewood.

For six days, we watched the weather from our windows, unable to leave our little farm, not even venturing outdoors unless it was to care for our animals.  When we did go out, our fingers would be aching and frozen within minutes in spite of all the layers we wore.  That meant that instead of taking only 20 minutes, taking care of the animals stretched on into 45 minutes to an hour as we had to make trips back to the house to warm up.  On the seventh day, the weather improved enough that we left to run some errands, restock our fridge, and generally just be out of the house.  We had a brief two or three days of temps still below freezing so nothing melted but we managed to slip and slide down our driveway to make it to work and school, and then another storm moved in.  This time it was ice. 

The best way I have found to be cabin fever is to schedule my day.  I make myself a list of tasks to complete each day, like all the cooking I mentioned above, interspersed with a great movie, and more little things like making the bed, dusting the book case, organizing my sock drawer, and then check each one off after it's completed so I can look back over my day and see the progress.  In that way I get to relax and rest a lot, but also get up and get busy a lot too, so I don't get bored.  My home has never looked better than after this winter, because I finally got around to doing a lot of the little things that often get pushed aside on the weekends in favor of bigger house chores.  For example, Ihave had two shirts sitting in my closet for two years now that need to be cut up into quilt squares, but I haven't made time.  Now they're taken care of and I have a little extra space in my closet too.

Baking is a great comfort activity during these times I have found and something I can invite a family member to join me in if anyone else is starting to feel bored too.  We made stew, chili, chicken and dumplings, chocolate chip cookies, apple pie, fresh bread, beans and cornbread, chocolate cookies with white chips, and the list goes on.  I never really made an abundance of food each day so that we sat around noshing all the time, but just enough so that there were always lovely things to look forward to for each day's main meals.  The ice finally melted to rain and then the weather shifted to warmer days.  This may be the one and only winter event we get this year and that will be A-OK with me, but I truly did enjoy all our time together as a family snowbound.  I know it's all hard to believe while looking at photos of ethereal white rabbits and utterly snowless ground, but it really did happen, I promise.