By Pam Stone

While I’m grateful not to have lost power and am sorry for those who did, it’s a wee bit irritating to prepare for the worst case weather scenario that was being played out on the local news, and receive just enough ice and snow to make friends of mine in New England scoff and send me a deluge of photos showing themselves standing next to Berlin Walls of the white stuff on either side of their driveway.

 

“The European model, the one we’re following, is showing 6 inches of snow in the Upstate!” declared one weatherman, a mere 24 hours before the event, “Followed by up to half an inch of freezing rain.”

 

Yikes! My first thoughts turned, as always, to the critters, especially the hooved ones, so off I went to the feed store to stock up on the equine equivalent of bread and milk: extra hay and shavings for their stalls, should the ice, which normally turns our heavily wooded and shaded road into a non-melting luge track for days, prevent my leaving the farm.

 

On the way home, it occurred to me that as Paul, who does all the cooking, was out of town on business (and posting annoying photos of lovely dinners in Seattle), my attempts to cook a frozen pizza in the fireplace, should we lose power, probably wouldn’t be quite satisfactory. Although I will point out that pizza is, after all, pizza, and I wouldn’t be adverse to gnawing at a frozen one in order to thaw it out, rather like ‘Nanook of the North’s Eskimo wife who chewed on his frozen moccasins so that he could head out and hunt blubber the following day. So, I pointed the Dodge to the grocery store and bought about a silo’s worth of easy to heat tomato soup and baked beans.

 

Heat! One must have heat and as we do have a fireplace, back into the truck I hopped, this time with the terriers, because the guy I buy firewood from has about 14 Rottweilers all behind a chain link fence that enjoy slathering and snarling as anyone approaches and Bonnie and Rosie love to give them a huge ‘what for,’ shrieking safely on the other side of the truck window.

We loaded up about a half cord and my plan was to back the truck right up to the mudroom door and cover with a tarp, making the wood easily accessible to keep the home fires burning. Plus, I wouldn’t have to unload it. My final touch was to pour several bags of ice melt from the house to the barn and up the back steps. Victorious with my advanced planning, I fed the horses, tucked everyone in, drained the pipes, then took a lovely hot bath (could be the last opportunity for days!), and turned on the news for the latest weather forecast.

 

“The American model is now showing perhaps only an inch of snow but this will be a significant ice storm!”

 

I don’t know who these models are or what fashion has to do with any of this, but I suddenly remembered, all comfy cozy in my jammies with a dog in my lap and a glass of pinot in my hand, that when there is ice, our 1/4  mile driveway becomes impassable. So, on went the very dirty quilted Carharts I’d just peeled off, along with muck boots, hat and gloves, and off I went to move my truck to the top of the driveway and walk back. Cussin’.

 

As I approached the mud room I thought I may as well go ahead and bring some wood actually inside so I wouldn’t have to negotiate slippery steps and risk falling, sending Paul a cross country text reading, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Off I trudged to the barn and brought in four big, rubber, muck buckets (leaf buckets to you who don’t have to shovel horse poo) and filled them with wood and left two in the mudroom, and two next to the fireplace.

 

And waited. Ready. Smug. Sorta looking forward to living like a pioneer with no electronic devices, enjoying the candlelight and camping out by the fireplace. Why, I’ll be able to spend quality, uninterrupted time reading and meditating, I thought, pouring another half glass of red. Peace and quiet…

 

But the worst of the ice went below the farm and the worst of the snow went above. And while we had quite a bit of glazed sleet the following morning, I woke to the scent of split poplar and felt rather let down that the house was a comfy 68 degrees and my coffee was waiting.

 

I was even foolish enough to feel a twinge of envy watching ‘Live, Super Dopplarcalifragilisticexpialido-

cious Weather’ reports of power outages in the general area.

 

But not me. My laptop showed a slew of emails and I turned off the TV to answer them.

Man, this is a lot of firewood to go through.

 

Not to mention ‘mater soup.