WINTER

 

                                                          Deep

I’d rather not dwell too much on this past winter, especially now that it is as glorious a spring as I’ve seen in years. Perhaps it was the deadly winter that makes spring so sweet this year.

We had a white Christmas. Then a white New Year. It went on like that for some time.  It got colder and colder, and the snow came every week and just would not melt enough to do anything but create a layer of ice on top. On the 21^st of January, the snow fell over the partially-melted snow from before, and that set the standard for the next couple of months. Snow turns to ice, snow falls on ice, rinse and repeat.

 

                                                             Deeper

 

                                     More on the way; the beginning of ten inches

By early February, there was no walking on the farm without falling and breaking something essential. Just getting from the steps to the truck became well-nigh impossible. It was a daily chore to clear the snow from the truck.

                                                                    Two feet

 

Salt became scarce, then was nonexistent in the stores.

I couldn’t do anything but huddle by the fire and turn up the wall-mounted gas heaters.

 

The fireplace, though pretty, just created a wind-tunnel from the dog-door to the chimney, so it was useless as a heat source. The dogs liked it, though.

 

The wall-mounted LP gas heaters, special ordered from Montville Hardware (the Best Hardware Store in the World), saved the day.

Then the unthinkable happened.

The water heater, which I had repaired when I moved in, developed a major gas leak when the pilot assembly disintegrated.

I smelled something strange when I left for work that morning, but it didn’t smell like gas.

That evening, when I returned, the smell was gone. But the heater quit just after I lit it, and going into the basement, I knew just how lucky I’d been. The cellar was filled with fumes. Apparently the gas came out at such a volume that it blew out the tiny pilot flame, saving the house.

Something in this house likes me.

I set up a fan, blew out the fumes and froze for a week until the gas company could make a delivery.   I also thanked my lucky ghost.

 

                        Some people get stick-ons to make these patterns, but these are real

It was pins and needles all winter, with no money left after the weekly expenses. It took me until Christmas to pay the surveyors, then I dropped a thou on the gas company, then another for taxes. I supplemented my heat with some oil-filled electric jobs, but after my second three-hundred-dollar bill from CL&P, I put those things away.

Finally March came. It was still cold, but the sun was working on the ice. By early April the last patches of ice melted, though it took a lot of salt (now available) to get the last bits to go away.

                                           March 22nd. Jennie King's birthday(my mom)

No work got done on the place between late December and late March.

Then I set my jaw, made a list, and got to work.

The sun was coming up earlier and setting later. Maybe I could actually get things done!

Then Daylight Savings Time began and I had light in the evenings. I had never appreciated it so much before.

Restoration of The Standish Farm, here I come.