Real Montana Winter

                                                            Real Montana Winter

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Hi John,

I understand the weather is a bit on the rough and tough up there. I’ll not talk about the weather down here.

Hello Sondra,

That’s what a little time in Mexico does to you. You’ve lost your Montana bravado. Don’t you long for the minus five temperatures, the minus twenty wind chills, the eight inches of snow? You’ve become a wimp.

            Well, that sure shut my mouth! And that after I’d been whining about what a cold winter we are experiencing here, what with the dregs of the cold flowing downward along the Pacific coast. Lows of fifty and highs of seventy for days! Brrrrr.  Locals donned layered clothing and winter jackets. I, accustomed to going barefoot, caught a chill and sniffles and thought I had just cause for complaint. Another Montana friend suggested I stuff a wool sock in my mouth. 

            The socks proved fuzzy and uncomfortable so I took them out of my mouth and put them on my icy feet. The truth is I do long for Montana winter. But only little pieces, as if I could choose to keep this bit and to discard that bit.

            Nothing is more beautiful than morning sunrise with an inch of new frost glittering on branches and twigs and power lines. Or, lying in bed listening to pure silence, knowing that when you look out the window the world will be snug, tucked in beneath a blanket of new snow. And, oh, the delight when fat, puffy snowflakes sift down into piles on the rare windless day, snowman material. Or when the night sky dances and hums with aurora magic. Or the melancholy beauty of the overcast day when the tortured frozen limbs of cottonwood trees seem to hang onto the heavy sky.   

         

            When I envision these wonders, I like to imagine sitting in a well-worn overstuffed chair in front of a crackling wood-stove fire, fleece slippers on my feet, my cat curled in my lap, a steamy mug of hot chocolate in my hand.

            Unfortunately, what I remember most vividly is a different picture. I shudder to think about bundling up to face extreme temperatures and the chilling, killing wind. Of leaving the warmth of home looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy, so bundled I can hardly waddle. Of nose hairs that freeze with my first cautious breath. Of not being able to wear glasses because the frame gets too cold. Of keeping my mouth clamped tightly shut against the wind.

            Of my feet sliding out from under me on a patch of hidden ice, slamming me so hard I cannot catch my breath. Of my eyes making uncontrollable tears, forming icicles on my cheeks. Of fingers that turn numb despite wool liners inside leather mittens. Of wondering if my toes are still attached.

            Of wind that grabs my coat and tries to rip it from my body. Of walking backwards down icy streets, to keep the wind at my back. Of finally reaching shelter, my muffler frozen solid with a sheet of ice from my breath, salty icicles beneath my nose, eyebrows rimed with frost.

            Of plugging in the car. The sluggish sound when the motor will barely turn over. Of tires that freeze flat in extreme cold, turning round-clunk, round-clunk, round-clunk. The heater full blast, unable to penetrate the chill.

            Of driving through a blizzard, or on black ice, or in a white out, guessing, hoping where the road might be, not daring to stop. Of sliding off the road and wondering how long I can leave the motor running before the exhaust pipe plugs with snow and suffocates me, wondering if help will come, wondering if I have enough gas to keep the heater going, of wanting to walk for help knowing that is wrong decision.

            I flatter myself that I’m pretty good at evoking a scene to convey to others. But I’ve tried to explain winter to Mazetlecas only to be faced with a flat look of incomprehension. Finally I quit trying. If one’s not lived a real Montana winter, one cannot imagine it. I will content myself with whining when the nighttime temperature plunges to 52 Farenheit and I can’t go barefoot.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

January 15, 2015

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The First Blizzard of Winter, the Goodness, Soup, Bread and a Bossy Cat

The First Blizzard of Winter, the Goodness, Soup, Bread and a Bossy Cat

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That morning when I checked the NOAA weather map, the entire northern tier of Montana blazed scarlet for “Blizzard”, poised to pounce mid-afternoon. I walked to coffee and the post office, knowing I would not see my friends or my mail for days. The heady wine scent of fallen leaves dominated the air. Negative ions foretold the approaching storm, shifted and danced to the slightest breeze, kissed me with an overwhelming feeling of well-being.

Back home, I watched as the red line on my thermometer dropped, the sky darkened, and wind chased leaves down the street. Early in the afternoon, school busses, engines belching fogs of diesel, lined up in preparation for early dismissal. For an hour the sky drizzled rain, refreshed the thirsty earth. The wind picked up, transformed each raindrop into fat flakes of snow, flung them to the ground to melt. School buses returned and disappeared into the maw of the storage barn across the street. Another hour passed. Ice coated every surface. Flakes piled, drifted, and buried the world outside my windows. I set a kettle of beans to soak.

By evening the ever-deepening snow piled helter-skelter like mounds of meringue. I stood in my open doorway to test the violence of the wind-swirled white, to breathe deeply the clean wet smell. Falling snow, even in the storm, dampened other sound, isolated me in silence. That night with my cat draped over my feet I slept peacefully.

The next morning I put my pot of beans on the stove. I still battle each chore with a wounded wing. I awkwardly gathered ingredients for bread and in a ludicrous comedy of flying flour, assembled a blob of dough, later to be one-handedly pummeled into ill-shaped loaves. My kitchen resembled the great outdoors. Once the dust settled, I cleaned for an hour. The beans gently simmered. My cat pasted herself over the heat vent in the dining room. Snow continued to fall.

I could afford to watch this storm through the eyes of a half-full glass. I don’t have to fight through the drifts to pitch hay to the cattle or bust through ice-crusted water troughs or haul arm-loads of wood to fill the kitchen wood-box. I could be reasonably sure that the sun would melt the snow, would turn it into sloppy slush. From the warmth of my living room chair I could imagine the drought-thirsty ground drinking each drop of moisture.

I live on the street in Harlem known as the old highway. Parallel to this street are the railroad tracks. In a real way every train rumbles through my living room. On the second day of storm I could not see beyond the willows along the tracks. The hills disappeared. There was no sky. There was no horizon. The skeleton arms of cottonwoods grabbed the lowered sky and clutched it to them like a blanket. The roof of the bus barn across the street showed no edges, no definition. Snow sifted down like dust.

Cars accelerated from the stop sign at my corner and slick-slid past my house. Each train chuffed through wearing a wind blasted shirt of snow and ice. Well-bundled youngsters raced screaming snow mobiles down the center of the street, some pulling sleds, both passengers and drivers screeching and laughing. My cat nudged me away from my post at the door, led me back to my chair, so she could stretch along my lap.

For supper I slurped my soup and tore chunks of hot bread from the misshapen loaf. I wished my granddaughters were here so I could treat them to snow ice-cream. When their parents, my children, were small we would scoop bowls of snow, add spoons of sugar, vanilla and heavy cream. We shoveled it down quickly before the snow could melt. I chose to ignore the superstition I learned from my grandmother. She said to wait for the second snow, to let the first snow clean the air. Clean the air of what, I wondered.

My cat begged to go out so I opened the door to show her. She sniffed and said, “Oh.”

Before winter is over, I fear I will come to view each storm through a half-empty glass crusted with dregs of cabin fever. But that day I saw the goodness. I knew that tomorrow or the day after, the blue sky would hold us under its bowl. The sun would turn the air to diamonds.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

November 15, 2012

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