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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Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Friday, March 11, 2011
Spring Hopes Eternal
Spring Hopes Eternal
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With the exception of one friend, an avid winter sportsman, every person I talk with is desperately seeking, searching, and praying for signs of spring. Such signs are sparse to non-existent. We’ll take any sign—and here’s my list.
1. Increasing hours of sunlight: Personally, I am an enthusiastic hibernator. This is an embarrassing confession. In winter darkness, I want to sleep. In the wee daylight of December, fortified with a good mystery book, I force myself to stay awake until 6:30 or 7:00. The sun and I both sleep in. By March I have added three and a half hours to my day.
2. The flipping of the calendar pages from winter, winter, winter to March, the place holder for spring: This year in northeastern Montana , this unruly month roared in like a lion on the prowl. One hopes we’ll see signs of the lamb but I’m not holding my breath.
3. Seed catalogs: I’m on every mailing list, but prefer to buy locally, mostly petunias and geraniums, which are content to grow without fuss. Yet I indulge myself, lingering over each page, in a greedy feast of floral abundance, air brushed to perfection, sure to die in zone three. .
4. Spring birds: Yesterday, gazing out my south window which frames my poplar trees, I saw a flicker flutter in, settle on a tree, and tap, tap, tap looking for bugs. I got hopeful. Oh, first glorious bird of spring. Then I remembered that I’d seen this same flicker on the coldest day of the year. Thirty seconds in my bird book verified that he is a year-round resident. False alarm. The only birds I have spotted are clothed in the grays and browns of winter. I thought I heard honking geese one day last week and threw my door open to the blowing snow only to discover a neighbor’s truck horn was stuck.
5. Reports from foreign climes: Friends gleefully torment me with their pictures of snowdrops and crocus (last month), budding lilacs and daffodils in bloom (right now), rising temperatures, gentle rainfall and greening of the grass. Bah, humbug.
6. The Montana Seed Show: The Seed Show is one sure sign of approaching spring. We who have hunkered in our houses all winter will gather, shake hands, slap backs, exchange hugs, tell lies, and eat pie. We will scan the exhibits, ogle the quilts and paintings, and generally enjoy one another.
7. Floods, a sign of spring we’d rather not see: Already ice jams against bridge abutments and water trickles beneath the snow-covered frozen soil. The latest update promises floods on the Milk River . Since the valley is wide and perfectly flat, this is not an encouraging report. In addition to the river, Harlem is keeping a close watch on Thirty Mile Creek to the north of the railroad tracks. I’m in the market for hip waders and a row boat, cheap.
8. Taxes: Did I mention taxes?
It’s snowing. County trucks loaded with gravel, blades to the ground, just rumbled down my street. Frozen fog glitters. My cats stand at the door and look longingly. When I slide the door the cats, despite fur-lined skin, test the air with their noses, turn back, run and hide.
9. A walker: Jack, his parka zipped with hood up, just walked by. The street in front of my house is a regular route for walkers. Jack is the first walker I have seen since November. Spring will surely following his footsteps.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
March 10, 2011
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__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
With the exception of one friend, an avid winter sportsman, every person I talk with is desperately seeking, searching, and praying for signs of spring. Such signs are sparse to non-existent. We’ll take any sign—and here’s my list.
1. Increasing hours of sunlight: Personally, I am an enthusiastic hibernator. This is an embarrassing confession. In winter darkness, I want to sleep. In the wee daylight of December, fortified with a good mystery book, I force myself to stay awake until 6:30 or 7:00. The sun and I both sleep in. By March I have added three and a half hours to my day.
2. The flipping of the calendar pages from winter, winter, winter to March, the place holder for spring: This year in northeastern Montana , this unruly month roared in like a lion on the prowl. One hopes we’ll see signs of the lamb but I’m not holding my breath.
3. Seed catalogs: I’m on every mailing list, but prefer to buy locally, mostly petunias and geraniums, which are content to grow without fuss. Yet I indulge myself, lingering over each page, in a greedy feast of floral abundance, air brushed to perfection, sure to die in zone three. .
4. Spring birds: Yesterday, gazing out my south window which frames my poplar trees, I saw a flicker flutter in, settle on a tree, and tap, tap, tap looking for bugs. I got hopeful. Oh, first glorious bird of spring. Then I remembered that I’d seen this same flicker on the coldest day of the year. Thirty seconds in my bird book verified that he is a year-round resident. False alarm. The only birds I have spotted are clothed in the grays and browns of winter. I thought I heard honking geese one day last week and threw my door open to the blowing snow only to discover a neighbor’s truck horn was stuck.
5. Reports from foreign climes: Friends gleefully torment me with their pictures of snowdrops and crocus (last month), budding lilacs and daffodils in bloom (right now), rising temperatures, gentle rainfall and greening of the grass. Bah, humbug.
6. The Montana Seed Show: The Seed Show is one sure sign of approaching spring. We who have hunkered in our houses all winter will gather, shake hands, slap backs, exchange hugs, tell lies, and eat pie. We will scan the exhibits, ogle the quilts and paintings, and generally enjoy one another.
7. Floods, a sign of spring we’d rather not see: Already ice jams against bridge abutments and water trickles beneath the snow-covered frozen soil. The latest update promises floods on the Milk River . Since the valley is wide and perfectly flat, this is not an encouraging report. In addition to the river, Harlem is keeping a close watch on Thirty Mile Creek to the north of the railroad tracks. I’m in the market for hip waders and a row boat, cheap.
8. Taxes: Did I mention taxes?
It’s snowing. County trucks loaded with gravel, blades to the ground, just rumbled down my street. Frozen fog glitters. My cats stand at the door and look longingly. When I slide the door the cats, despite fur-lined skin, test the air with their noses, turn back, run and hide.
9. A walker: Jack, his parka zipped with hood up, just walked by. The street in front of my house is a regular route for walkers. Jack is the first walker I have seen since November. Spring will surely following his footsteps.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
March 10, 2011
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Floundering Through the Crevasse
Another chapter in our never-ending winter!
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Floundering Through the Crevasse
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A few days ago I was dragging a sack of garbage across my backyard snowfield to the alley for pick up, when I fell into a crevasse.
That sounds melodramatic. But there have been weeks this winter when I could not get to the alley. When our daytime temperature rose above freezing for several days, the snow drifts had settled somewhat. In fact, there were indications that soon I would be able to see benches, flower pots, rocks and currant bushes which have been buried since November.
So I laced up my Sorels , grabbed my walking stick, shoved the snow away from the back door, and eased over the icy embankment and up, up onto the snowfield. Carefully, I probed my way with my walking stick, testing the depth of the mounded snow, dragging my garbage sack behind me. When I came to where my “path” skirted the cabin, I faced a quandary.
My house is centered on the front of my lot. At the back, in a corner, sits an old cabin, the original home of the family who once lived here. The snow, which had melted off the cabin roof, had formed a small pond. During the night the pond had frozen, creating a skating rink of some size. The skating rink blocked several feet of my path.
Rather than risk the rink, I ventured out into the garden on the other side of the path. I use the term “garden” loosely. In this area I cultivate volunteer lettuce, onions, Canada thistle, pig weed and kosha. But I digress. I ventured further up onto the snowy plateau which hid all but the memory of a garden. I found the mound to be quite solid.
I also saw my little world from an unexpected perspective. In ordinary times my yard is flat, with nary a distinguishing vertical feature. Never had I viewed the roof of the cabin, my neighbor’s houses and the full reach of the alley from this heady elevation. I looked out over a brave new world. I took another step and plunged into a crevasse. With one leg. My other leg stayed on top of the drift. My buried leg was tightly encased with crusted snow all the way past mid-thigh. I could not move either leg. I could not get purchase to lift myself from my icy prison. I could not go forward. I could not go backward.
A gray car drove by on Fourth Street . The people did not see me. I pondered tying my garbage sack onto the end of my walking stick and waving it in the air, a distress signal. I also considered that my garbage weighed at least forty pounds. My neighbors across the alley hurried out of their house, jumped into their car and drove away. I waved. They did not see me. Or they pretended they did not see me. Well, what would you have done?
First of all, I looked pretty funny, anchored in my snow bank. It is not polite to laugh at someone in distress. I know my neighbors to be very polite. Besides, they were on the way to work, probably already five minutes late and they wanted to stop at the new coffee shop in town to order caramel mocha-rocas, venti, three shots, skinny, extra hot, whipped cream, coco powder, a chocolate covered coffee bean and no straw, please.
So I sat down. I was mostly sitting down anyway, with my leg stuck in the ice. Very slowly, on my bottom, I scooched myself backwards out of the jaws of the icy trap. Still sitting, I dragged me and my garbage bag over the snow field several feet to the distant edge of the bank. There I swung my legs over and jumped to the “ground,” grateful that we do not live in avalanche country.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
February 24, 2011
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Floundering Through the Crevasse
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A few days ago I was dragging a sack of garbage across my backyard snowfield to the alley for pick up, when I fell into a crevasse.
That sounds melodramatic. But there have been weeks this winter when I could not get to the alley. When our daytime temperature rose above freezing for several days, the snow drifts had settled somewhat. In fact, there were indications that soon I would be able to see benches, flower pots, rocks and currant bushes which have been buried since November.
So I laced up my Sorels , grabbed my walking stick, shoved the snow away from the back door, and eased over the icy embankment and up, up onto the snowfield. Carefully, I probed my way with my walking stick, testing the depth of the mounded snow, dragging my garbage sack behind me. When I came to where my “path” skirted the cabin, I faced a quandary.
My house is centered on the front of my lot. At the back, in a corner, sits an old cabin, the original home of the family who once lived here. The snow, which had melted off the cabin roof, had formed a small pond. During the night the pond had frozen, creating a skating rink of some size. The skating rink blocked several feet of my path.
Rather than risk the rink, I ventured out into the garden on the other side of the path. I use the term “garden” loosely. In this area I cultivate volunteer lettuce, onions, Canada thistle, pig weed and kosha. But I digress. I ventured further up onto the snowy plateau which hid all but the memory of a garden. I found the mound to be quite solid.
I also saw my little world from an unexpected perspective. In ordinary times my yard is flat, with nary a distinguishing vertical feature. Never had I viewed the roof of the cabin, my neighbor’s houses and the full reach of the alley from this heady elevation. I looked out over a brave new world. I took another step and plunged into a crevasse. With one leg. My other leg stayed on top of the drift. My buried leg was tightly encased with crusted snow all the way past mid-thigh. I could not move either leg. I could not get purchase to lift myself from my icy prison. I could not go forward. I could not go backward.
A gray car drove by on Fourth Street . The people did not see me. I pondered tying my garbage sack onto the end of my walking stick and waving it in the air, a distress signal. I also considered that my garbage weighed at least forty pounds. My neighbors across the alley hurried out of their house, jumped into their car and drove away. I waved. They did not see me. Or they pretended they did not see me. Well, what would you have done?
First of all, I looked pretty funny, anchored in my snow bank. It is not polite to laugh at someone in distress. I know my neighbors to be very polite. Besides, they were on the way to work, probably already five minutes late and they wanted to stop at the new coffee shop in town to order caramel mocha-rocas, venti, three shots, skinny, extra hot, whipped cream, coco powder, a chocolate covered coffee bean and no straw, please.
So I sat down. I was mostly sitting down anyway, with my leg stuck in the ice. Very slowly, on my bottom, I scooched myself backwards out of the jaws of the icy trap. Still sitting, I dragged me and my garbage bag over the snow field several feet to the distant edge of the bank. There I swung my legs over and jumped to the “ground,” grateful that we do not live in avalanche country.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
February 24, 2011
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Sunday, March 7, 2010
Like Falling Out of Love
By the end of February in Montana, tempers are on the short fuse.
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Like Falling Out of Love
Last fall in Chinook I saw a marvelous play about the great storyteller, Edgar Allen Poe, presented by the talented young actors of the Montana Repertory Theatre. One thing I took home from this play, and that has stuck with me, is the idea of “Poe Moments.”
Poe Moments are those wonderfully evil thoughts we all typically have when confronted with an annoying person or situation. Unless one is a psychotic serial killer, and let’s assume we are not, we do not act on the thoughts; we sweep them beneath the rug of consciousness. Nowadays, instead of lifting the corner of my rug, I recognize the Poe Moment, wryly thank it for participating in my life, chuckle and get on with my day. Anything can trigger a Poe Moment.
This morning when I woke up, I groaned out of bed, hobbled to the window, saw several inches of new-fallen snow and mumbled, “I don’t love you anymore.” I checked the forecast for the next three days—more of the same. I was too depressed to look at the ten-day forecast. I have been house-bound for too many days, weeks, nay, months.
I watched the flakes drift to the ground, a blanket of white with shadows of blue, an obliteration of geography. I experienced a now familiar “Poe-e-tic” feeling. I growled and grumped through my morning routine. Certain years are more memorable than others and eventually assume a place in personal history as “the year that . . .” or “the winter when . . .” This evil winter, which seems bent on burying us beneath the snow, human popsicles, deserves a name. What better name than Edgar, in honor of Poe. Edgar Allen Winter, I salute you.
My friends in a more temperate clime accuse me of talking too much about the weather. I answer that for those of us who live in northern Montana , winter weather takes on a persona. This winter has become my most intimate friend/enemy. A friend, for his terrible beauty. An enemy, for his danger.
I sigh for those unappreciated years when I lived in the Pacific Northwest , where every day it rained and every day the temperature was forty-six degrees. Winter and summer I wore the same clothing. My monthly heating bill fluctuated minimally. I owned one set of tires for my vehicle. My car did not have plug-ins sticking like sloppy tongues out the grill, nor an extension cord greedily feeding it power at night. My heavy Sorel boots mouldered in the back corner of the attic.
This morning, in a moment of self-torture, I bowed in obeisance before my summer closet, lined with short-sleeved shirts I have not seen since October. My eyes glazed over with a feeling akin to lust. I cleaned the cobwebs from my sandals and placed them lovingly back on the shelf. I blew a kiss to my summer clothes, gently shut the door and promised to return in June.
Eventually I pulled myself together and hoisted my red flannel-lined jeans off the shelf of my winter closet. I wriggled into my long-sleeved merino wool pullover and topped it with a plaid Pendleton button-up shirt. I completed my wardrobe with knee-high wool socks. This is what I wear indoors.
This afternoon I went to the post office to mail a check to the power company, a check the amount of which required a bank loan. I pulled on my boots heavy with tire-tread soles. Then I struggled into my hefty winter coat, twined my scarf twice around my neck, jammed my wool hat onto my head and wriggled my fingers into my gloves. A fashion maven I am not.
A Poe Moment occurred when I battled to disengage the plugs from the extension cord to my van. I envisioned opening my mouth and with the breath of a fiery dragon I melted the mounds of snow and ice. In my imagination I lifted my dragon body into the air and blasted up and down every street, clearing the snow and flooding the alleys. Filled with dragon pride, I preened my feathers and soared out into the country, melting Montana to the beat of a tell-tale heart.
Edgar Allen Winter, no longer shall I worship your frost-crusted limbs, burn incense in homage to your diamond-sprinkled sky, or lift prayers of thanksgiving for the beauty of snow-blanketed hills. Edgar Allen Winter, I would carve you into little pieces and melt you in the incinerator. I don’t love you any more.
Sondra Ashton
Havre Daily News: Looking out my back door
February 25, 2010
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__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Like Falling Out of Love
Last fall in Chinook I saw a marvelous play about the great storyteller, Edgar Allen Poe, presented by the talented young actors of the Montana Repertory Theatre. One thing I took home from this play, and that has stuck with me, is the idea of “Poe Moments.”
Poe Moments are those wonderfully evil thoughts we all typically have when confronted with an annoying person or situation. Unless one is a psychotic serial killer, and let’s assume we are not, we do not act on the thoughts; we sweep them beneath the rug of consciousness. Nowadays, instead of lifting the corner of my rug, I recognize the Poe Moment, wryly thank it for participating in my life, chuckle and get on with my day. Anything can trigger a Poe Moment.
This morning when I woke up, I groaned out of bed, hobbled to the window, saw several inches of new-fallen snow and mumbled, “I don’t love you anymore.” I checked the forecast for the next three days—more of the same. I was too depressed to look at the ten-day forecast. I have been house-bound for too many days, weeks, nay, months.
I watched the flakes drift to the ground, a blanket of white with shadows of blue, an obliteration of geography. I experienced a now familiar “Poe-e-tic” feeling. I growled and grumped through my morning routine. Certain years are more memorable than others and eventually assume a place in personal history as “the year that . . .” or “the winter when . . .” This evil winter, which seems bent on burying us beneath the snow, human popsicles, deserves a name. What better name than Edgar, in honor of Poe. Edgar Allen Winter, I salute you.
My friends in a more temperate clime accuse me of talking too much about the weather. I answer that for those of us who live in northern Montana , winter weather takes on a persona. This winter has become my most intimate friend/enemy. A friend, for his terrible beauty. An enemy, for his danger.
I sigh for those unappreciated years when I lived in the Pacific Northwest , where every day it rained and every day the temperature was forty-six degrees. Winter and summer I wore the same clothing. My monthly heating bill fluctuated minimally. I owned one set of tires for my vehicle. My car did not have plug-ins sticking like sloppy tongues out the grill, nor an extension cord greedily feeding it power at night. My heavy Sorel boots mouldered in the back corner of the attic.
This morning, in a moment of self-torture, I bowed in obeisance before my summer closet, lined with short-sleeved shirts I have not seen since October. My eyes glazed over with a feeling akin to lust. I cleaned the cobwebs from my sandals and placed them lovingly back on the shelf. I blew a kiss to my summer clothes, gently shut the door and promised to return in June.
Eventually I pulled myself together and hoisted my red flannel-lined jeans off the shelf of my winter closet. I wriggled into my long-sleeved merino wool pullover and topped it with a plaid Pendleton button-up shirt. I completed my wardrobe with knee-high wool socks. This is what I wear indoors.
This afternoon I went to the post office to mail a check to the power company, a check the amount of which required a bank loan. I pulled on my boots heavy with tire-tread soles. Then I struggled into my hefty winter coat, twined my scarf twice around my neck, jammed my wool hat onto my head and wriggled my fingers into my gloves. A fashion maven I am not.
A Poe Moment occurred when I battled to disengage the plugs from the extension cord to my van. I envisioned opening my mouth and with the breath of a fiery dragon I melted the mounds of snow and ice. In my imagination I lifted my dragon body into the air and blasted up and down every street, clearing the snow and flooding the alleys. Filled with dragon pride, I preened my feathers and soared out into the country, melting Montana to the beat of a tell-tale heart.
Edgar Allen Winter, no longer shall I worship your frost-crusted limbs, burn incense in homage to your diamond-sprinkled sky, or lift prayers of thanksgiving for the beauty of snow-blanketed hills. Edgar Allen Winter, I would carve you into little pieces and melt you in the incinerator. I don’t love you any more.
Sondra Ashton
Havre Daily News: Looking out my back door
February 25, 2010
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Friday, February 19, 2010
Up To My Neck in Hot Water
Up to My Neck in Hot Water
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It was a night much like tonight. The wind whipped sheets of snow around the corner of the house, ice rimed every surface. Snow piled in drifts which the wind, like a restless housewife, never satisfied, picked up, dragged elsewhere, then shoved back again. Temperatures had plummeted and settled with no notion of moving upward. Aspen , Karla and I sat on the floor in my living room playing rummy. The boys kneeled in the opposite corner, constructing fantastical buildings with Legos.
We were single women in Missoula , raising children, and adrift in the same boat of poverty. Karla did odd jobs about town. Aspen worked at St. Pat’s and raised two children she had not birthed but loved just the same. I put an ad in the paper and called myself the “Scissors Wizard”. I hemmed blue jeans, replaced zippers in ski jackets, and altered chiffon formals. If it could be done with a needle and thread, I did it.
Our pleasures were few, simple and mostly of our own contrivance. I had moved to town late in the fall and these women were new-found friends. Karla said, “Let’s bundle up the boys and drive out to Sleeping Child.”
Aspen walked to the window and looked outside. “In this mess? My jeep won’t even start.”
“What is ‘Sleeping Child’?” I asked. “ Hot springs ,” they answered in unison.
We emptied our purses and pockets into a pool on the floor and counted the loot. Entry was only a dollar or two and we could stay as many hours as we wanted. We had enough money leftover to put gasoline in Karla’s clunker. Mine was sitting out front with a flat tire. It would sit there a couple more weeks. I had a block of commodity cheese and a loaf of bread so I made sandwiches. Aspen lived a couple blocks across the park. She ran home and came back with orange juice. Karla had brought over brownies for later. We were set.
We packed the boys and our winter picnic lunch into the backseat of Karla’s beast of a car and headed south out of town to Sleeping Child. We undressed in the change house and, nearly naked in our bathing suits, skittered and slipped through the snow, across the ice. The boys dived into the large pool and frolicked about. We eased into the smaller hot pool. As our limbs relaxed, we basked in the heat, watched the steam roll off our shoulders. We floated and gazed, mesmerized, at the star-studded sky. Some time later fat snowflakes drifted lazily into the hot waters. On the way home we all sang songs until our worn-out boys fell asleep. Then we women, sated by the warm waters, quietly shared our fears and hopes to the tune of the tires shooshing along the snowy road.
Thereafter, nearly every week, seduced by hot water, we loaded food and boys into whosever car was running and drove out of town. We went to Lolo Hot Springs, at that time housed in a primitive barn. Sometimes we drove to Paradise and Quinn’s Hot Springs . If the roads allowed, we crossed into Idaho to Jeremiah Johnson Hot Springs , a series of bubbling pools in the briskly flowing Lochsa River .
When I moved to Washington I traded hot springs for a hot tub on my back deck, which my family and I used daily. It wasn’t the same and I missed my friends. Oh, the kids and I occasionally trekked to Olympic Hot Springs, where numerous thermal pools snuggled into the hillsides, a short drive and a long hike into the mountains near Port Angeles .
What had begun as a subtle seduction had turned into an addiction. So twenty five years later I returned to Harlem , hooked on hot water. And I had a dilemma. Sleeping Buffalo , the nearest hot spring, was a bit of a drive, though I did avail myself of its pleasures now and then. I wanted to sink to my ears in hot water every day. Most bathtubs are useless for soaking. The tubs that were deep enough cost too much, were huge and inappropriate for my tiny 1970’s bathroom. I could not afford to buy, maintain and heat a hot tub. What was a woman to do?
One day in Havre I drove up the hill to Big R and parked. Right in front of me, stacked behind the fence, in a variety of sizes and shapes, sat the solution to my problem. I nearly danced with excitement. I took some measurements, drove home and took some more measurements, drove back and bought a galvanized stock water-trough for a mere seventy dollars.
Then I proceeded to rip apart my bathroom, plumbed in the trough, lined the walls with cedar and burlap, propped an ancient wooden ladder in place of a towel rack, installed an old dresser to hold my sink, and built an outhouse surround for the commode. The traditional quarter moon on the door completed my rustic in-house out-house.
Let the wind roar, the snow fall, the drifts pile and shift and bury all evidence of yards and sidewalks and streets. Let the ice build and snow and cold have their way. Tonight I am in my own tub, in my own home, steam wafting off my shoulders, up to my neck in hot water.
Sondra Jean Ashton
Havre Daily News: Looking out my back door
January 7, 2010
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_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It was a night much like tonight. The wind whipped sheets of snow around the corner of the house, ice rimed every surface. Snow piled in drifts which the wind, like a restless housewife, never satisfied, picked up, dragged elsewhere, then shoved back again. Temperatures had plummeted and settled with no notion of moving upward. Aspen , Karla and I sat on the floor in my living room playing rummy. The boys kneeled in the opposite corner, constructing fantastical buildings with Legos.
We were single women in Missoula , raising children, and adrift in the same boat of poverty. Karla did odd jobs about town. Aspen worked at St. Pat’s and raised two children she had not birthed but loved just the same. I put an ad in the paper and called myself the “Scissors Wizard”. I hemmed blue jeans, replaced zippers in ski jackets, and altered chiffon formals. If it could be done with a needle and thread, I did it.
Our pleasures were few, simple and mostly of our own contrivance. I had moved to town late in the fall and these women were new-found friends. Karla said, “Let’s bundle up the boys and drive out to Sleeping Child.”
Aspen walked to the window and looked outside. “In this mess? My jeep won’t even start.”
“What is ‘Sleeping Child’?” I asked. “ Hot springs ,” they answered in unison.
We emptied our purses and pockets into a pool on the floor and counted the loot. Entry was only a dollar or two and we could stay as many hours as we wanted. We had enough money leftover to put gasoline in Karla’s clunker. Mine was sitting out front with a flat tire. It would sit there a couple more weeks. I had a block of commodity cheese and a loaf of bread so I made sandwiches. Aspen lived a couple blocks across the park. She ran home and came back with orange juice. Karla had brought over brownies for later. We were set.
We packed the boys and our winter picnic lunch into the backseat of Karla’s beast of a car and headed south out of town to Sleeping Child. We undressed in the change house and, nearly naked in our bathing suits, skittered and slipped through the snow, across the ice. The boys dived into the large pool and frolicked about. We eased into the smaller hot pool. As our limbs relaxed, we basked in the heat, watched the steam roll off our shoulders. We floated and gazed, mesmerized, at the star-studded sky. Some time later fat snowflakes drifted lazily into the hot waters. On the way home we all sang songs until our worn-out boys fell asleep. Then we women, sated by the warm waters, quietly shared our fears and hopes to the tune of the tires shooshing along the snowy road.
Thereafter, nearly every week, seduced by hot water, we loaded food and boys into whosever car was running and drove out of town. We went to Lolo Hot Springs, at that time housed in a primitive barn. Sometimes we drove to Paradise and Quinn’s Hot Springs . If the roads allowed, we crossed into Idaho to Jeremiah Johnson Hot Springs , a series of bubbling pools in the briskly flowing Lochsa River .
When I moved to Washington I traded hot springs for a hot tub on my back deck, which my family and I used daily. It wasn’t the same and I missed my friends. Oh, the kids and I occasionally trekked to Olympic Hot Springs, where numerous thermal pools snuggled into the hillsides, a short drive and a long hike into the mountains near Port Angeles .
What had begun as a subtle seduction had turned into an addiction. So twenty five years later I returned to Harlem , hooked on hot water. And I had a dilemma. Sleeping Buffalo , the nearest hot spring, was a bit of a drive, though I did avail myself of its pleasures now and then. I wanted to sink to my ears in hot water every day. Most bathtubs are useless for soaking. The tubs that were deep enough cost too much, were huge and inappropriate for my tiny 1970’s bathroom. I could not afford to buy, maintain and heat a hot tub. What was a woman to do?
One day in Havre I drove up the hill to Big R and parked. Right in front of me, stacked behind the fence, in a variety of sizes and shapes, sat the solution to my problem. I nearly danced with excitement. I took some measurements, drove home and took some more measurements, drove back and bought a galvanized stock water-trough for a mere seventy dollars.
Then I proceeded to rip apart my bathroom, plumbed in the trough, lined the walls with cedar and burlap, propped an ancient wooden ladder in place of a towel rack, installed an old dresser to hold my sink, and built an outhouse surround for the commode. The traditional quarter moon on the door completed my rustic in-house out-house.
Let the wind roar, the snow fall, the drifts pile and shift and bury all evidence of yards and sidewalks and streets. Let the ice build and snow and cold have their way. Tonight I am in my own tub, in my own home, steam wafting off my shoulders, up to my neck in hot water.
Sondra Jean Ashton
Havre Daily News: Looking out my back door
January 7, 2010
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Spring Will Arrive
This one went to the paper today. I wrote it this morning. I am liking my new computer. I named her. But that is another story.
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Spring Will Arrive
It was February second. With bated breath I awaited the annual appearance of the groundhog. Up here on the northern tier, winter has us locked in its unrelenting icy grip since Thanksgiving. The groundhog may say yes. The groundhog may say no. Spring arrives on its own schedule. Besides, how can a subterranean rodent affect the turning of the seasons? But I grew up on fairy tales. At first light, I chortled and said, no shadow. Spring is on the way. And sure enough, the calendar justified my exuberance with uppercase letters, SPRING BEGINS on March twentieth. I checked the information on two calendars just to make sure. Right.
Then Monday night my friend Kathy from British Columbia called to chat. “The daffodils are in bud,” she said.
“The snow banks are receding,” I responded.
“This morning Richard and I drank coffee sitting in the sun on the patio, breathing in the smells of new leaves and lilacs.”
“The ice in the river is beginning to break up.”
“Today I am planting primroses along the walkways.”
“What are primroses?” I counter. My forty-third garden catalog from the various nurseries back east just arrived with offerings of exotic plants guaranteed to die in this northern semi-desert zone. “I shall plant petunias and geraniums when the frost leaves the soil.”
“It is supposed to rain tomorrow. That will be good for my bulbs,” Kathy said.
“It is 20 degrees here with wind gusting to 30 miles per hour. Tomorrow will be sunny and temperatures in the 50’s. Snow is forecast for Wednesday. That doesn’t mean it will happen that way, but it might. Right now the county roads are slick with mud but usually they freeze up at night. A few more days of wind and the roads will look like tracks carved in baked clay.”
“Do you ever have spring?” Kathy asked.
“We often get a week in May,” I answered rather hesitantly. “Or June. Then summer arrives with temperatures in the 90’s and clouds of the famous Harlem mosquitoes.”
Yesterday a friend remarked that this is the most dreary time of the year. I refuted that. The fields are beautiful with sunshine illuminating the various shades of gold, browns, tans, heathery purples. If you squint your eyes just so, you can detect the green beneath the brown. The leaf buds hang on the ends of tree branches, just waiting for the right signal to shoot forth. And when I rake into the flower debris from last fall, I see new life burgeoning forth from the soil. There is hope. Little gophers line both sides of the highway. Huge flocks of geese heading north alight in the stubble fields for the night, as if the stubble is a special campground just for them. Oh, yes. Today is Wednesday. It is snowing.
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Spring Will Arrive
It was February second. With bated breath I awaited the annual appearance of the groundhog. Up here on the northern tier, winter has us locked in its unrelenting icy grip since Thanksgiving. The groundhog may say yes. The groundhog may say no. Spring arrives on its own schedule. Besides, how can a subterranean rodent affect the turning of the seasons? But I grew up on fairy tales. At first light, I chortled and said, no shadow. Spring is on the way. And sure enough, the calendar justified my exuberance with uppercase letters, SPRING BEGINS on March twentieth. I checked the information on two calendars just to make sure. Right.
Then Monday night my friend Kathy from British Columbia called to chat. “The daffodils are in bud,” she said.
“The snow banks are receding,” I responded.
“This morning Richard and I drank coffee sitting in the sun on the patio, breathing in the smells of new leaves and lilacs.”
“The ice in the river is beginning to break up.”
“Today I am planting primroses along the walkways.”
“What are primroses?” I counter. My forty-third garden catalog from the various nurseries back east just arrived with offerings of exotic plants guaranteed to die in this northern semi-desert zone. “I shall plant petunias and geraniums when the frost leaves the soil.”
“It is supposed to rain tomorrow. That will be good for my bulbs,” Kathy said.
“It is 20 degrees here with wind gusting to 30 miles per hour. Tomorrow will be sunny and temperatures in the 50’s. Snow is forecast for Wednesday. That doesn’t mean it will happen that way, but it might. Right now the county roads are slick with mud but usually they freeze up at night. A few more days of wind and the roads will look like tracks carved in baked clay.”
“Do you ever have spring?” Kathy asked.
“We often get a week in May,” I answered rather hesitantly. “Or June. Then summer arrives with temperatures in the 90’s and clouds of the famous Harlem mosquitoes.”
Yesterday a friend remarked that this is the most dreary time of the year. I refuted that. The fields are beautiful with sunshine illuminating the various shades of gold, browns, tans, heathery purples. If you squint your eyes just so, you can detect the green beneath the brown. The leaf buds hang on the ends of tree branches, just waiting for the right signal to shoot forth. And when I rake into the flower debris from last fall, I see new life burgeoning forth from the soil. There is hope. Little gophers line both sides of the highway. Huge flocks of geese heading north alight in the stubble fields for the night, as if the stubble is a special campground just for them. Oh, yes. Today is Wednesday. It is snowing.
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