We are experiencing the worst winter I can
remember since the winter of 78-79. We have been pretty spoiled by mild
winters, but this year has taught me several things. For starters, when I
decided to trade off our SUV and buy a front wheel drive Ford Taurus, I should
have had my head examined. I have been stuck more than I have been unstuck in
the past month.
Secondly, when my husband wanted to give me a
remote car starter for Christmas, I should not have told him that I would rather
have a new barbecue. If I had learned the second lesson, I would not have had
to learn the third lesson which is that if you run out to start your car in
your pajamas and you perform an astonishing ballet movement on the ice in the
driveway that stretches your rectus abdominus muscle, be advised that you will
walk like a sprung slinky for two weeks. Fourthly, if you bury your car deep
enough in a snowdrift that you cannot open the doors, don't even bother to roll
down the window to hear what your husband is saying, because you can lip read,
"You drive like a Norwegian!" (with sincere apologies to all my
Norwegian neighbors who have pushed or pulled me out of the ditch this past
month!)
Fifthly, if you do roll down the window and
shout back, "Well, shovel like a Norwegian, so I will be able to get
out," it will probably be met by a universal gesture of disapproval.
Sixthly, when you live 1/2 mile down in the creek bottom from the county road,
you need to reach a speed of 35 miles per hour as you cross the narrow bridge
over Lower Deer Creek in order to make it on to the county road. Seventhly, if
there are cows standing in the way, you will not make it to the county road, so
you might as well wait until the cows are fed before you try to go to work.
--Thanks to Susan Metcalf of the Lower Deer Creek Ranch for
her winter ranch report!
