Five degrees at 35538. Sun’s out. Snow is cleared for the most part. Piled high and going nowhere. Temperatures staying below freezing for the foreseeable future. I stopped looking at the squares on Weather Underground.
We’ve cleared one-lane-only walking trails from the house to the shed to the barn to the cars. Eli, the goat, bundled in two Rambo blankets for his twice-daily walk, tucked into a deep bed of straw the rest of the time. Duchess, the cat, curled up next to him. Buddies from a long way out. Kissin Conquest, Eagle Poise, and Apse (Riverdee’s first jumper, best flat horse, first Saratoga winner), wrapped up in Rambos, quilted thick and tarp heavy. Icicles hanging from their chins, their jaws. Winter warriors.
The mudroom looks like a second-hand ski sale. Hats, gloves, masks, jackets, boots, goggles, all in some sort of drying mode. Hanging from hooks, knobs, over doors, draped on sink edges. Ready for the next shovel task, feeding time, night check.
Jack London cold.
Then the man dropped into what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day ended in a long evening. There were no signs of a fire to be made. Never in the dog’s experience had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the evening grew darker, its eager longing for the fire mastered it. With much lifting of its feet, it cried softly. Then it flattened its ears, expecting the man’s curse. But the man remained silent. Later, the dog howled loudly. And still later it moved close to the man and caught the smell of death. This made the animal back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and ran along the trail toward the camp it knew, where there were the other food providers and fire providers.
The way winter is meant to be, right? Get rid of the ticks, bolster the water table, all that jazz. Miles bundling up to play a pick-up football game at Hill School. Oh, to be young again.
Limerick abandoned. Parx cancelled. Mahoning Valley cancelled. Turf Paradise is your only domestic action today. For the diehards. The Aiken Steeplechase seems a long way off.
