Reflections on the Ninth Week of Winter

 

    Instead of packing my swim bag Tuesday, I grabbed my Nikon, a pocket tape measure, and the red handled broom. I walked outside and edged down our snow covered porch steps.

    Following me, Spence picked up his shovel, cleared the snowy steps, and paused in the log house driveway.

    I thrust the broom handle into the snow then gripped it at the snow line with my gloved index finger and thumb. Camera swinging on a strap around my neck, I pulled out the upside down broom.

    Spence laughed. “If only your children could see you now.”

    Was he talking about the calf high boots, striped leggings, black winter jacket, maroon scarf, and blue hat I wore for the falling snow and thirty degree weather? Probably not.

    I slipped the end of the measuring tape under my gloved finger and eased the tape out of its plastic case. Eleven inches of snow lay on the driveway. Sixteen lay over the grass beside the driveway.

    Carrying the shovel on his shoulder, Spence walked to the garage basement door. He shoveled a space for the doors to swing open then revved his Mahindra tractor. He scooped and dumped one tractor bucketful of snow at a time to make a path around the garage and up the slippery hill to West Creek Road.

     I returned the broom to the porch and waded through snow in search of photos. Snow depth varied. Once it came above my waist, but that didn't count. I had tripped over a snow-buried log and fallen on my butt. I circled both fields then slogged downhill and across the flood plain. My boots swooshed in and out of snow waves coming up my legs from mid calf to knee top–fourteen to twenty-one inches.

   Clumps of snow plopped off evergreens. Deer Creek burbled under ice. Chickadees chirped.

    After an hour of aerobic wading through the snow, I climbed the hill to the log house–staggered two steps, paused to pant, tugged my boot out of the snow and staggered another step. Sweat beaded on my neck, back, and arms. I placed the camera on Spence's porch desk and picked up the broom. With blood rushing through my limbs, fresh air filling my lungs, and cheeks tingling from the cold, I swept snow off my leggings then carried my gear inside.

    Spence and the Mahindra cleared snow for two more hours.