Light in the Forest

I went showshoeing yesterday, hoping to get a picture of some diamonds for my friend Shaman. They glittered everywhere, but as she later commented, "Proof Diamonds are hard to photograph." Husband took to the woods on his cross-country skis, our paths occasionally crossing and going along together.

I was hoping to see fisher and fox tracks, but deer and coyote were what I found. The beaver pond is frozen over and tempted me to trust it, but I did not, owing to the fact that the snowshoes had broken through and gotten wet and ice-coated at one place along its edge. I am not a fool.

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Everything was beautiful and pristine, brightly sun-lit and cold. The camera traveled inside my coat and at times my gloved fingers fumbled with its settings and shutter. Gradually, afternoon light began to give way to the golden glow of on-coming sunset, the temperature began its slide back to negative numbers, and we headed for home.

Near the end of our outing we passed through a dark spruce grove where I took the photo you see below. Titled The Light in the Forest; here is a haiku it inspired:

Woods quiet and dark

Winter sun peeks through branches

True enlightenment

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Woodstove Cookery

Women used to prepare all of their family's meals on and in "wood cookstoves". My grandmother used one, but - like every other woman of her generation - happily switched to the new-fangled coal, then gas and finally electric counterpart as they became available.

In the stove pictured here, the larger white door is the oven; the smaller one a second oven; the lower left-hand door is the firebox. There was a water reservoir (seen here on the right side of the stove). The compartment above the stove was for storage and for keeping things warm. Bread might have been placed up there to rise.

The cast iron top of the average kitchen stove had six "burners", varying in heat level by where they were located relative to the fire burning below them or the path by which smoke and heat exit to the chimney pipe. (You've all heard of putting it on the back burner - the cooler place where things simmer rather than boil). The chimney pipe doesn't show in this picture, but it would connect to the back of the stove just above the level of the burner top.

There is something romantic and wonderful about having a wood cookstove. Their heat is even, they warm the house as well as the food, and you feel connected to the generations of women before your time for whom this appliance was "modern". On the down-side, cookstoves take up a lot of space, eat a lot of finely split wood, and the dirt and bark bits falling off that wood constantly litter your kitchen. This appliance becomes damnable in the heat of summer.

I don't have a cookstove, but my house is heated by a woodstove (pictured in the previous post), and I can cook just about anything on top of it. The heat is even, and by placing a pan either directly on it's flat top or on one of three trivets of varying height, I can vary the cooking temperature. Like the old cookstove, the front of my stove is hotter than the rear. An oven is created by placing a large kettle upside-down over the pot and trivet, or by creating an aluminum foil tent of suitable size and shape to cover what you want to bake. I favor cast iron frying pans, and they are right at home on the woodstove top; the tea kettle boils quickly on a cold winter day.

One January several years ago we experienced The Great Ice Storm of '98 that left us without power for nearly two weeks. When power crews finally restored our electricity, we chose to leave it off. A friend had joined us, and we were just sitting down to our woodstove-cooked meal by candlelight: Mediterranean halibut, humus, tabouli and a salad. I had even baked brownies to enjoy with the ice cream from its frozen place on the front porch.

These last two photos are of that meal, a meal that was delicious and still the source of a warm memory.

Life at
-10

It's cold again this morning. The car groaned a very slow "don'-wanna-go, don'-wanna-go, don'-wanna-go" before firing, then made engine noises anticipatory of metal parts cracking and shattering. Leather seats will no doubt be stiff for the first couple of miles, but eventually the seat heaters will do their work, and by the time Husband reaches town, life in the car won't be too bad.

Barn work is easier in this weather: shit freezes and can be more easily scooped up with my horsie litter scoop. Winter barn chores are always dangerous, since a fall or injury outside means death by freezing before anyone would even miss me. Today will be more dangerous than usual - or maybe I should think of death having the potential to happen more quickly.

I consider the many Amish families living in the North Country. They lack the luxury of seat heaters, but their barns - unlike mine - will no doubt be warmed by the animals within. They are good-natured folk on a first-name basis with weather.

I will fill the woodstove often today. The colder it is outdoors, the hotter the stove burns. Colder air causes the chimney to draw, fanning the flames. Our house is oriented to the sun - which is just up - and soon it will be toasty inside these walls. Tonight's dinner will be made on this black appliance too, not because I have to use it, but because I like to.


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The birds at the feeders (bluejays, chickadees, juncos, woodpeckers, goldfinches mostly) have frost on their backs and heads. I have never noticed this before. Could they be sweating?? They're certainly puffing out their feathers to keep warm.


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It's a day for wool sox (probably for long underwear too, but I didn't put it on). My double wool mittens are my fingers' friends. I'll smile as I take the soapstone warmers off the stove shelf and place them inside my boots: a simple solution to a basic problem.

Do you sense how much I like this day? It is so quiet here. Can you appreciate the beauty of sun throwing long tree-shadows across the frozen pond? Tracks in the snow tell their stories; earlier daylight reminds me to savor this icy stillness because it will soon give way to mud season. Steaming coffee soothes rather than stimulates.

My life is blessed.

ADDENDUM (after going to the barn): HOLY HEAT EXCHANGER, BATMAN! It's fucking freezing out there! I'm gonna shoot a few bluejays and stuff their feathers in my underwear! Where's my travel agent's phone number? I wonder if furniture burns hotter than firewood... This coffee needs some whiskey in it! What kind of moron would choose to live in this climate?!?!

Winter Stream

Skating on Thin Ice

Do you remember how to ice skate? I had to yesterday. (Note: there will be no photographs with this post)!

Our one and only pathetic North Country mall does not have a cinema, but it does have a skating rink, and that's where "Bomma" and "Brappa" took Grandson yesterday. For a meager $5 you can have a pair of skates and use the rink for two hours on Sunday afternoon (between hockey games and figure skating lessons), and so we decided to see if the 4-year-old could handle it.

We had fun, but there probably won't be any future NHL bidding war for the boy. Here's a haiku he inspired:

Hockey skates glide proud
Young boy makes ice acquaintance
Bottom black and blue

And:

Grandparents on skates
Helping grandson survive ice
Can you spell achey ?

So Much Talent...

There are so many talented people in the world. Here's one I've "met" in Bloggerville: The Lone Beader. Check out what this woman does!

You can also link to her blog from my left sidebar list.

Snowshoe Haiku



I wanted this poem about his old snowshoes to be a tribute to my father, but as much as I tried, the element of irony - the ‘break’, 'cutting word' , or 'turn', which usually occurs between the second and third lines of a haiku that juxtaposes the other images in the poem - wouldn't come to me.

Here's a different slant (picture these lines in the above photo):

Leather snowshoe webs
Northern winter woods walkers
Adios New York

Which do you prefer?

Shaman's Influence

Every day I am blessed by several poems from Shaman. She favors - but does not limit herself to - haiku. Today, following her example, I am trying my hand at writing some. Here is an explanation of haiku form. And here's another of my attempts:



and another...
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The Big Chill...

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Things have warmed up a lot since yesterday's reminder of winters past. There used to be winters when this was the norm for a week at a time; months when the indicator never went above freezing. You adapted to it.

I can usually judge the temperature without looking at the thermometer. On a cold night, the woodstove burns up everything you loaded into it the previous evening (an empty stove in the morning tells you is was cold last night). The bigger the birds look (they fluff themselves up to keep warm), the colder it is; and below

-10 degrees the horses have frost on their eyelashes.

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Simple weather changes predict rising or falling temperatures: snow is "cleared off cold," meaning that clearing skies usually indicate colder weather; and conversely, a sunny day deteriorating into cloudiness usually means it will "warm up to snow."

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We lived in a mobile home while we built the house we now inhabit. At -10 degrees, one of the drain lines would freeze, a fact you would discover when you dumped the dirty dishwater into the kitchen sink and it quietly encountered the ice plug and backed up into the bathtub. Then you had two choices: forget about showering until warmer weather; or work for an hour or so with a plunger, a plastic cup to bail with, and boiling water from the tea kettle.

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The first winter we lived in that marvelous tin house, we went away for the Christmas holiday and returned to drains so frozen that we had to pee into a chamber pot until April.

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This morning it is thirty degrees warmer than it was yesterday. Ten degrees on the plus side feels pretty good. For a few days, perhaps, I will not think about the horror we are creating by warming the globe, but while I stick my head in the snow, go to Robin’s ‘hood to learn some easy things you can do to keep my thermometer reading where it should be.

In and Around the Horsie Hilton

Horses - like people - have very distinct personalities.

Dream loves her barn and her stall. If it ever catches fire, she is the horse who will run into it and go up in flames because of the security and safety it represents to her. Preventing her access to it causes equine melt-down. After shutting her out for a few hours, I risk life and limb opening the door: she hurtles in, often smashing into wall or door in her haste. One evening she repeatedly crashed head-long into the barn door in anticipation of my flinging it open (and diving for cover).

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Heidi, on the other hand, is like the rural mailman: "neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow" keep her from the outdoors. Her attitude seems to derive from a fear of being trapped and the need to be able to flee from imagined dangers (like the saddle) at will.

Why do I keep these two nut-cases? Just look at them. Come to the barn with me and listen to their greetings, see the contentment they find in the simple pleasures and comforts I offer them, tell them your troubles and know that they understand your mood and will never tell anybody your secrets.

I fell in love with horses when I was very young.

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I still have a pair of appropriately named "saddle shoes" that fit me when I was two years old. Stuck to the bottom of them is some horse manure dating back to 1947. Some loves never die.