Musicians Farming Sheep: Cold

In the summer months, heading out to do morning or evening chores means sliding on some barn boots. In just a few minutes we can be up to our knees in straw, hay or poop. In the winter months it takes time to prepare ourselves to greet the cold: it is all about the layers; wool socks with some kind of under base (formerly known as long underwear) tucked into the socks. Durable pants that don’t allow wind to slip through, then the whole thing jammed into boots that are warm down to sub-zero temps. Two layers on the upper torso then the barn coat, dirty, dependable, durable (DDD) I like a wool hat with an inside layer. It wreaks havoc with the hair, but getting past that is another blog entirely. I yank a neck gator over it all to seal my neck and lower half of my face from the icy breezes. When I have the added pounds and can’t see more than a few feet in front of me, I know I am ready to face the elements.

New Year’s bells were rung by icy winds. January reclaimed its heavy-weight title as our coldest month of the year. We dropped well into the frigid zone, the mercury touching double digits below zero many times.

I love it.

Each morning as I walk to the barn with a bucket of water in each hand, I am stopped in my tracks by the beauty. The cold means that the snow that is frosting the branches of the pines stays in place. If there is a slight wind I can watch it catch some and toss it up into the air like a white mist. When the air is very dry and cold, any moisture turns to icy sprinkles that sparkle in the morning sunlight. I stand as still as I can and take it in. Often my breathing is labored from hauling and I can not only see it, but can hear it coming from my chest, like wind coming off the mountain.

Equally striking is the silence. Often there are complaints that winter can be oppressively isolating. I understand that but actually one of the things I love about winter is that isolation. The precious feeling of quiet and being alone with my thoughts and buckets. Everything is insulated by the deep snow so any sound can be surprising. Chickadees flitting about in the branches having a morning chat with each other, the bare branches of the trees clacking in the wind, any leaves that are fall-stragglers quaking with the cold. Between the snow and my hat pulled tightly onto my head, I often have the feeling of having noise canceling headphones on and there is relief in that dampening.

When I have finished my work and head back to the house, I open the door and am enveloped by the heat coming off the wood stove. My face flushes as I move backward through the layers I started out with. My hair stands on end and I feel very Einstein-ian. I pad across the floor in my thick socks to grab some oatmeal and I recognize that I could not fully appreciate the warm without the cold.

Sometimes when I am at the gas pumps I hear people grumbling about the winter. Their points are valid and understandable but they are living their lives in a kind of suspended reality, always waiting for the “something betters” to come along. When it is icy and cold they cannot wait until it is warm. When it is hot and we are melting, they long for the fall.

We tend to spend a lot of time in that suspended reality, waiting for summer, more money, bigger house, retirement. What we are suspending, in reality, is life.

It takes effort to layer up and go outside. Water in cold metal buckets makes my hands ache but animals need to be fed. We clean our driveway only to have another foot of snow the next night. Large avalanches slide off our metal roof depositing jagged chunks of ice and snow in our walkways, making them impassable until we shovel ourselves back out into the world. When it is cold, it takes more motivation to drive to a store or even take a walk.

The work of winter makes me feel alive.

Only difficulty makes me appreciate ease. It is an empty stomach that makes me appreciate food. And I remind myself that it is the icy path that leads to daffodils in spring.

Melissa Perley