Winter Ranch Report

   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!