Red Hawk Rustic

Things fall apart as Yeats said, but they also converge.  This is a story of how a borrowed book, a college play, and a visit to a friend all come together under the same theme.  

Recently, my sister lent me a book called Women's Diaries of the Westward Journeyby Lillian Schlissel.  It is a sad book, a breathtaking book.  Schlissel combs the diaries of one hundred women, young and old, who made the overland journey from the settled eastern and Midwestern states to California and Oregon throughout the 1800s and gives a picture of their lives before, during, and after the move.  It is difficult for our modern sensibilities to fathom the hardships these women faced.  Why would they even risk the move, is a natural question.  And the sad answer is that most of the women didn't want to go.  Hell no, they didn't want to go.  Are you crazy?  Of course, in 1841, or whenever, you had to listen to your husband.  And if he had a wild hair to go the "land of milk and honey," then you packed up your babies, and/or your pregnant self, and went along for the (very bumpy) ride. 

Last Friday night, I attended the musical play, O Pioneers!at Ohio State University to watch Jack in the role of Ivar--the crazy old Norweigian who lives in a hole in the ground.  (He was perfect for the part ;-)  The play is based on the novel by Willa Cather.  It was a stark tale.  There were some triumphant moments and some lovely reflections on the land, but there was no denying that carving out a life on the Great Plains in the 1800's was hard work.  The story centers on Alexandra, the eldest child and only girl in the family.  Her father leaves her in charge of the farm when he dies and she rises to the challenge and becomes a successful landowner and businesswoman.  It reminded me of the strong, shrewd and entrepreneurial women I read about in the Schlissel book.  How amazing these women were to take what they were given in life and make so much out of it.

I happen to be heading west to California myself this weekend.  Except, instead of loading a covered wagon and bumping across the plains for six months to get there, I used John's frequent flier miles and booked a plane ticket.  And I had the nerve to be all, "darn, I can't avoid two layovers!"  Instead of a direct, five and a half hour flight, it will take me between seven and eight hours to get there.  Poor me.  And when I get there, I'm going to see my dear friend Colette and we're going to get massages and go out to eat and take walks and drink coffee and generally enjoy ourselves.  Then I'll fly back home where the snow will have hopefully melted almost all the way, and even though it will be Muddy, spring will be right around the corner.

I have to say that I'm grateful to be living in the 21st century.  I'll think about those women from the 19th, though, as I travel at unfathomable speed across this huge continent.  And I'll be reminded of how good I've got it as I push my seat back, sip my Coke, and crack open another book.

See you next week! 

Today the sun is shining.  The forecast on the computer says it is cloudy.  But, there isn't a cloud  in sight as far as I can see.  Well, I won't get too attached.  I take little comforts where I find them these days and carry on without hope and without despair.

Last night I made up a casserole of macaroni and cheese.  Homemade.  From scratch.  With crumb topping.

When John leaves, it's no holds barred on what I can cook.  Out comes the sodium, the carbohydrates--doesn't matter.  For a side, I seared some broccoli and cauliflower in a pan with butter, soy sauce, red wine, and yes, more bread crumbs.  With a little of the wine in a glass and a hunk of sourdough bread and butter, can I tell you it was wonderful?  It was. 

Whatever it takes, people.  March is right around the corner.  We can do it! 

The amount of snow and the frequency with which it is accumulating is causing everyone around these parts to marvel.  Or grouse, or despair, or rejoice--depending on what it is a person has to do and when.  You see, we don't usually get this much snow.  Oh, we get dumped on with big storms from time to time, but it usually happens all at once and then it melts and doesn't come back.

This year is sure different.

I have felt all the attending emotions in turns.  But one thing is certain--no matter what I feel about it, the snow is there. 

It's weird--the difference between the summer and winter landscape out here.  Weird, because there is such a dramatic difference.  In the summer, I'm living in a veritable jungle.  It is hot and humid and the vegetation forms a thick wall of green all around our property.  You can't see my neighbors' houses across the road through the trees.  The underbrush in the woods can be impenetrable in places.  It feels huge and enclosed at the same time.  Huge, because the treelines of the wooded parcels are tall and they border wide pastures.  Enclosed, because the treeline is thick and the interior of the woods is dark under the proliferation of leaves.

Winter arrives and the land becomes a palimpsest, with another layer of text revealed by the unlikely hand of a covering of snow.  All the downed limbs and curling grapevine and bittersweet form a cursive script across the white board of winter.  When I look out across the land I can see all the hills in succession through the black lines of tree trunks.  There is the blackberry patch just beyond the stretch of woods behind the drying shed.  Funny, it seems so isolated in the summer, but really it's just right there.  I can't see the back meadow because of the steepness of our first hill, but I can see the far hilltop of our neighbor to the south's land.  He cut some of the trees two years ago to make pasture for cows and now the bald head of the hill shines against the sky. 

The hills curve into one another, like a child's drawing of hills on a flat piece of paper, one hump after another.  In the woods, it becomes clear how the water flows through the culverts and why some places are always wet.  Bird nests are all of a sudden everywhere, abandoned cones with a dollop of snow on top.  I think to come fetch them for a collection, think that I won't forget where they are, but of course I can't find them again once the snow is gone. 

Every time it snows, I can see from my upstairs window the ruins of an old barn that lies just across the old township road from the cabin.  The big rectangular foundation stones appear out of nowhere.  I love the sight.  I don't know why.  The stones are beautiful.  They belong to my neighbor to the north, Dottie.  John asked her if he could take some of the stones to use in landscaping on our place.  At first she was reluctant.  "The deer bed down there," she said.  But later on the same day that he asked her, she called and said go ahead.  John broke his first tractor hauling just three of the smaller stones over, one at a time with a front loader--the weight of the sandstone testament to why they've lasted as long as they have.  The same kind of stones sit under the four corners of our cabin and the red barn.  The old bones remain strong.  Maybe that's why I love the sight of them so much.  They steady me.

In his book, The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples, Tim Flannery gives a reason for the marked difference between the seasons on this continent.  Climatic changes are greatly magnified in North America because the continent is shaped like an inverted wedge--a wide base deep in the sub-Arctic that narrows to an isthmus just eight degrees north of the equator.  The wedge is reinforced by the north-south mountain ranges--the Rockies in the west and the Appalachians in the east-- that help funnel frigid arctic air southward in the winter, and Gulf-warmed tropical air northward in the summer.  The hot and cold air masses battle it out as anyone living in Kansas will tell you.  I learned from this book that ninety percent of the world's tornadoes occur in North America!

The deciduous forests are also a hallmark of the climatic extremes.  They thrive wherever there is a "truly tropical summer followed by a chilling, Arctic winter."  (Yup, that's us.) The conifers can't take the summer heat and the broadleaf evergreens can't take the freezing winters.  All of that is obvious, I guess, to anyone with a sixth grade science education, but I never thought about the whole continent in this way before.  I never thought about being tucked into the horn of a trumpet before, at the mercy, or creation, of how the wind blows. 

Flannery says that the trumpet "plays two tunes."  The first is the seasonal variation, and the second is a longer note "played out over geological time, shifting the continent from greenhouse to icehouse modes."  Small changes in the global climate are magnified in North America until glaciers and sheets of ice appear...or, who knows what else with how the climate is changing these days.  To know that the continent I live on has this tendancy is a little unsettling.  Not that anyone will be in good shape as  the Earth continues to warm.

I am always a little befuddled when people scoff at global warming because we had a cooler than normal summer last year, and we're having record snowfall now.  Climate change is a better name for what's happening, since it doesn't mislead people into thinking that it is only going to get hot.  I must confess to being one of those people who secretly wish that it would get hotter--because I prefer being warm.  I know that's silly.  I know it doesn't take into account the gravity of the situation.  But I am looking forward to our "truly tropical summer" and hope it gets here real soon.

Ah, but the snow, the snow is still here.  There it is, out my window, blowing and swirling and accumulating.  I can't see my boots anymore.

Alas, there is nothing to do but read the text before me, even as I dream of summer stories in my head.

...the shelves in the study.  I don't know why I'm putting off the kitchen cabinets--that's what we really need done, but everything needs done, and I'm so tired of the mess of boxes in the study, and the shelves there were much easier to build than the kitchen cabinets will be, so that's what we did.  Well, mostly John did them, but I helped.  I helped drag the barn siding out of the drying shed and helped wash all the boards down.  That was back before we had ten inches of snow, back when we had ten inches of rain.  We were wet anyway, why not get the hose out?

And I helped John measure and figure in the way that I always do--I sat in the same room and wrote what he told me to on a piece of paper.  And, of course, I documented ~ Math hurts! (and so does banging your head on those rafters) Aaaand presto! Shelves! Now all I need to do is get all this--in there.

Another project done.  Only about one hundred-fifty more to go!