The Blessings of a Blizzard

Gaetano Belloni

Photo from here:

Even though the blizzard brought lots of disruptions to millions of lives, including my own, it did bring a little down time for lots of people. For me it was a good chance to catch up on the reading and watch some old movies on TV.

Frazz from here:

Like Caulfield, the comic strip character, I too read a book about our founding fathers. Mine was Virtue, Vanity & Valor: The Founding Fathers and the Pursuit of Fame by Eric Burns. It looks at a few of the most well known signers of the Declaration of Independence from a personal standpoint, examining the character traits the made them the great men they were in spite of having a few flaws. While focusing on the heavy hitters such as Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and a few others, I did learn about James Wilson - "the only person in the history of the United States ever to hold the positions of member of the Supreme Court and fugitive from the law at the same time". As long as I'm mining the mother lode of books dealing with our Founding Fathers, I'd like to read a little more on Patrick Henry next.

As soon as the sun gets a little higher, I'm going outside to take care of the animals and do a little more snow shoveling. I was outside yesterday for about four hours straight dealing with the snow. In a combined attack using tractor, snow blower and shovel, I managed to get a good path every where I needed to go and get the lane opened up. The snowblower managed to quit on me again. The thrower part locked up for some reason. I bought the thing used about ten years ago but it was only used about twice by the lady I bought it from and I haven't used it all that much either. I probably won't need it anymore this year, so I'll either take it to school or wait until summer and have a look at it. Normally I just shovel the sidewalk and around the vehicles and run the tractor to take care of everything. When you've got drifts a couple of feet deep in heavy snow, however, the snowblower is the way to go.

I can see that winter is going to be the thing that drives me to a little place in the city when I'm a few years older. Even though most of my time was spent on the tractor yesterday, I was still a little sore last evening. I managed to fall on my face the day before wrestling with the barn door, which of course never helps. The roof drips melted snow onto the ground right where the big door slides along and manages to freeze the door to the ground and build up a spot about 6" wide and 10' long that I have to chip away before I can open the door. I need to either get a gutter over the door or park the tractor in a different building. It usually is a problem only once or twice a year but that's getting to be once or twice too much.

The old tractor worked like a champ yesterday but like me, it too is getting old. It's a 1952 and the oil pressure isn't what it once was. The snow was higher than anything I had tried moving in the past and it didn't roll off the blade but mostly just stacked up until the wheels spun on the tractor. If I'm going to stick around on the farm, I need to work on all of these mechanical issues as well as keep myself in decent shape. Seems like a lot of work for maybe three or four days a year. For some strange reason, I enjoy doing it, however. I like being outside and sparring with Mother Nature a little bit. I realize that she's got the knockout punch and will win if she uses it but dealing with a storm like this makes me feel like I can control my own destiny. I'll never climb Mt. Everest but I can shovel a driveway that's a 1/4 mile long. This old shack is over 100 years old and they didn't have snowblowers or 4 wheel drive or gas heat. If they could handle a winter storm, I sure as hell should be able to.

Keeping the Pioneer Spirit alive by sitting in front of a computer!