A Long Cold Winter

The reddish cast to these leaves causes them to look
more like blooms than new leaves

After the longest cold spell I can remember here, there are at last
signs of spring. Day after day the frozen ground felt like walking on
concrete. Bare earth spewed ice crystals. Ice froze at the edges of
the creek.Every morning the pasture behind this house was frosted
white.

We've had colder winter weather. There was the year the pipes
froze underground and we were without water until it warmed up
enough to thaw them. Only a few years ago the creek froze all the
way across, dispelling my belief that running water would not freeze.
The water still was moving underneath its thick coating of ice.

But those frigid days were interspersed with warmer ones, following
the pattern I'd known in the south since my youth. A few cold days,
then warm up and rain, repeated over and over so that one never
became accustomed to the cold, shivering and huddling in blankets
each time the temperature plunged again. This year it stayed cold.
The only time it warmed up was when the deadly tornadoes struck
to the south of us. We were lucky. We only got the heavy rains.

One morning there was snow. Two whole inches! Schools closed,
workers were told not to report to work. It was the first snow for
my great granddaughter who was almost five. She was awakened
early and sent out to play before it melted.

Two years ago there was an inch or so of snow high on the mountain.
A friend who lives at Cloudland told me people were driving up all
day, parking by the roadside, letting their children out to walk in the
snow.

I know, I know. I read about the ten-foot snows in upstate New York
and I lived through several Chicago winters, including 1967 and 1979
when snow paralyzed that city. But only a few inches of snow create
hazardous driving conditions here, for we have steep hills and a dearth
of equipment to deal with the snow.

It's cold enough here to snow all through the winter, but doesn't
because of the actions of the jet streams, the northern one seldom
dips down this far southward. It has happened. Everyone old enough
remembers the blizzard of '93. Every few years we have snow enough
to close all the roads. And we have ice storms that bring down power
lines and trees. But this past winter there was only the unremitting cold.

One day there was a flock of wild turkeys at the far end of the pasture
behind this house, and on another morning there were a dozen or so in
the front yard. Twice while I was home we were visited by a lovely blue
heron. I could gauge the depth of the creek by watching it stride through
the water with its funny backward kneebends.

Another, darker heron hung around all winter. I frequently saw it
hunched on the creek bank, long legs drawn up beneath it, long neck
tucked down, its dark, almost black feathers riffled by the wind, giving
it a tattered, decrepit appearance. It reminded me of the old men in
ragged overcoats who sat around on park benches in Chicago.
Sometimes it hung around the cows in the pasture, ducking down to
walk beneath them. The heron is a solitary creature, but perhaps this
one preferred companionship sometimes.

The long cold spell has created hardship in this poor county. The
prices of natural gas and propane have kept pace with the price of
gasoline for automobiles. The power companies' rate increases and
provision for "fuel recovery costs" to be passed on to the consumer
have meant spiraling bills for electrical heat. I used 100 gallons
more propane than last year in this small house at a cost of $1.89
per gallon. An office worker told me she and her husband had to
have their tank filled three times for a total cost of $1,500.00.
Chattooga is a poor county, and for the very poorest and for those
on fixed incomes it becomes a matter of Heat or Eat.

But at last, spring is at hand. Jonquils are blooming in almost
every yard and there is blue and white vinca and the little white
Star of Bethlehem. The chickweed blossoms are blue dots
sprinkled over its recumbent foliage and there is rue anemone on the
low wooded banks by the creek. The yard is carpeted with violets,
both purple and white and there are buttercups and dandelions.
It has rained again and turned cool again, but this time it surely will
not last for very long, although a freeze is forecast for the coming
weekend. .

I've planted something called mustard spinach and some regular
spinach in one of the garden beds here- they're almost large
enough to start picking- and a short row of sugar snap peas by
the fence that still stands on the Menlo lot. This year indeed I will
have rows of okra. This year I won't be telling myself how
ridiculous not to have it when with so little effort one can grow
enough to feed an army rather than paying a dollar or so per
pound for it.

Now the stark, bare limbs on the far side of the creek and in
the woods across the road are clothed with a pale lacy green
on their way to becoming the deep green wall that surrounds us
all summer, and today in Walmart a man bought two 25-pound
bags of wild bird seed. "They're coming back," he said, "and I've
got to take care of them."