Deadman’s Hill–Normal Rockwell
Yesterday was the first cold day up here–I knew because everyone’s social media stream said, “SNOW!” Those posts that saved me the effort of turning my head to look out the window. Still, I looked, because that’s what the first snow in New England does to a person. The weather report sends everyone to the store to strip the shelves of milk and bread–because the cows might go on strike and never let farmers hijack another gallon, and I’m not sure why about the bread, because everyone has a pound or two of flour at home. You can bake your own. Here’s my recipe (#3). It’s by weight, so if you happen to know a baker or a drug dealer you can borrow a scale and give it a try. It’ll warm your house if you have a gas oven, and if you have a dutch oven, you can throw it on the wood stove. No need to avoid carbs just because there’s a couple of flakes of snow.
The kids respond to the snow, too. They all crowd around the window and stare. I try to teach.
“Yes, it’s snowing.” It’s not like Jim Cantore’s outside reporting. Then you know you’d better head for the hills or dig for cover. Like I’ve said before, you don’t want Jim Cantore in your town. He’s like one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. You know doom is coming and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Yesterday, there were just a few flakes, and no one in the room’s was going to convince the Good Lord to dump enough on us to get out of my class. So, sit.
A few of the flakes stuck on the grass and on the decaying wooden fencepost. I snapped a photo from an angle that created a slight Norman Rockwell illusion, and told nature I wouldn’t mind an inch or two more. Snow’s beautiful. Especially in New England where the horse-drawn carriage dots the collective Yankee memory and crumbling barns turn into postcards with a single weather forecast. I have a practical automobile, we have a full season and a half of wood, a wire generator, and all the canned goods I have put up this fall. I am challenging nature to lay it on. Time to be socked in for the winter, in a modern sense, because filling the gas tanks for the generator means I can sit here and write about it when the snow hits.
It’s not going to hit, though. The mailman delivered a box. It’s two-dozen heads of garlic that need to get in the ground before the freeze. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’m just in time. Then the snow can cover them, too.
