A record five inch snow falls in Leaf River on Halloween
Deborah Ann Lucas
An early snow puts a stop to outside projects.
On Halloween it snowed for the second time this week bringing our total to over seven inches. Although with forty-degree weather in the forecast next week, it shouldn’t last too long…this time at least. I’m not complaining really, not with Denver getting over a foot of snow and Montana getting over two. And a bit of shoveling is certainly better than all the fires many of my friends are dealing with in California. But I do feel bad for our Leaf River kids trick-or-treating in the wind and twenty-degree cold tonight. Here at home, I’m worried about Minka giving birth in the middle of it all. She’s a stray cat who has just taken up residence in our barn.
I’m ready for winter…but our farm is not. Barn doors newly built to replace old rotted ones need a coat or two of paint. I had intended to paint the rest of our tattered old barn, but it’s too cold now. Most people would have torn the structure down, but it’s served for many years as horse shelter. So we’ll keep repairing the roof and replacing the walls until we don’t need it anymore.
In the house, the basement limestone needs tuck pointing. That task has been on my list for years. I’ve made some progress working on the worst of it. The front garden, filled with hostas, iris and lilies, has been invaded by crab grass and thistle. The veggie garden in back still needs tomato cages pulled and stored and weeds whacked back again. They just keep growing from all that rain. I can’t complain because it also gave us a great growing season for veggies and herbs. Trees need their limbs trimmed back, fallen branches picked up and all of it mulched. Then if we have time, we’ll add all that mulch to aisles between raised beds in the garden and the walking path around the house. Adding to layers already decaying from last year and years before that helps control the weeds. We used to use Round Up, but I quit using it will all the concerns about it causing cancer. I won’t use any other weed killer, because we are all organic. Thus the need for all the mulching. It’s a lot of work for the two of us, and we never seem to get it done before winter which puts us behind come spring.
That’s our life here on our twenty-acre farm—always too much to do with too little time and energy to get it done. I’m sure if you have a yard or some acreage, you understand. It would all be so much easier if we just let it go wild, right? But that wouldn’t work for me or my animals. I need a grassy yard for the dog to run in and a grassy field to bale hay for the horse. Mowing the pasture also helps control burdock. The winter burrs seem to jump into Charlie’s mane and tail and need to be hand picked out.
Winter brings a bit of relief from the merry-go-round of chores. The cold leaves me no choice but to leave projects unfinished until Spring—unless, of course, we get some Indian summer, like one December when we were graced with a streak of 50+ weather.
In years past, we too used to celebrate Halloween—during the seven years when my niece and nephew lived with us before going off to college. I loved to decorate with cobwebs, ghosts and skeletons and have them invite their friends for a party with cut-off hands moving in candy bowls and toy spiders twirling around a string suspended from the ceiling, all in a mist from the fog machine. I still have a few boxes of stuff stored in the attic, although all the masks disappeared years ago (I probably gave them away, but don’t remember exactly who got them).
Some masks I’ve kept, the ones I made with plaster-gauze laid across my face, then covered in ribbons, feathers and paint. Two others of animal faces, I’ve created from forms that I sculpted in clay—a bear and a tiger. My friends and I used these in a Native-American-inspired celebration of Earth day one year. I researched four endangered species (one for each direction on the medicine wheel) and chose the Monarch Butterfly, Blue Whale, Polar Bear and Bengal Tiger. It was a fun evening with friends despite the horror of learning how we continue to decimate the indigenous animal populations around the world, because we chose to honor the natural world with dance and song.
Recently, I’ve been reading books about the natural world as recommended by my Writers As Readers book club. Braiding Sweetgrass told the story of a Native American botanist. Lab Girl was a surprisingly wonderful book considering its title, but most surprising and life-changing was our reading of Overstory about five families and their connections to trees through the generations including the redwood old growth forests. Richard Power’s amazing novel just won the Pulitzer and has become my favorite all time book (barely nudging out All the Light We Cannot See).
Just last month, I went to the beautifully renovated Dekalb library to listen to Richard Powers talk about writing this amazing novel and about his journey to becoming a world renown writer. This winter, I’ll be investing all the time I had spent doing summer chores outside into my writing as well continuing my research into trees to better understand the rich environment that sustains my physical, mental and my spiritual wellness every moment of every day.
Trees have always spoken to me—from the pines and poplars in Michigan to the Burr Oaks here on our farm. One stands at the front of the woods outside my front door just beyond the flat ground where my horse grazes. It’s weird to have only one horse now. We’ve had up to seven at one time, but never before, not in thirty years of having horses on our land—four years in California, one in Utah, then twenty-five more living here—have we ever had just one horse.
Every morning when I come downstairs, I verbally greet this great oak and wonder at its strength and vulnerability. Its trunk is split probably struck by lightning before we arrived, but still grows tall and broad. It inspires me and gives me strength which I sorely need as I choose which direction my life will go from here, although sometimes I wonder if I really ever have any choice in the matter. Taking care of these twenty acres with the animals and all the buildings is getting more difficult as I get older, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’m not ready to decide anything quite yet, so I’ll just enjoy the snow and say a prayer that all the kids in their costumes stay warm tonight.
This is a photo I took on one of my trips to visit friends back in Lancaster CA. It seemed fitting day to share it. Someone created a creature on a fence with bones collected in the desert. It looks like some of them are of long dead horses and cattle. I wonder if it is haunted by their spirits? Or perhaps they are honored by the art and rest in peace. I hope it is the later.
6 thoughts on “A record five inch snow falls in Leaf River on Halloween”
Reading words and seeing images from a smart, open-hearted woman is just plain fun. Deborah is someone who notices, reminding us, too, to pay attention.. My favorite image from this blog is her husband at the end of a very long ladder patching the roof of a ramshackle barn still needed to shelter horses.
Thanks, Caryl for being a loyal follower and a good friend. And you nailed my point. “Noticing” is at the core of my spirituality. Only through heightened my awareness can I attain and maintain wellness. It’s a lifelong journey that’s taken most of my life to just discover. By sharing my experiences and insights, maybe I can help someone else on their path by reminding them to notice the beauty and peace all around us. With all the challenges we each face, it’s easy to forget. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.
What a lovely essay. I felt as though I was walking with you through your house and around the farm. As though with the snow and a change of season comes reflection and deciding what tasks to lay down for the winter, and what new ones to pick up. We haven’t had snow here yet in St. Louis, but now I’m looking forward to it. Thank you.
Thanks so much, Joan. It looks like we’re going to get some extreme cold first. I’ve become so much more attuned to the weather since having horses, but it’s nice when I get to see all the wonderful sunsets going out to feed in the evenings. I’ve been thinking about how the weather and seasons braid together with my spirituality and my journey to find healing and hope to write about that in a blog soon. I really appreciate your ongoing support!
I really enjoyed your insights Deborah. Especially how you shared your connection to trees. I feel the same way! I even did a scrapbook page on the heartache our young family went through when we had to make the hard choice to cut down our very own “Giving Tree” in front of our cabin in the Catskills after it threatened to crash down on our roof. I can’t wait to get Overstory and read it.
Thanks, Kiersten. So sad about the loss of your Giving Tree. Have you posted a picture of it before you lost it anywhere on the web? I’d love to see it if you could share a link.