Two weeks ago, as we watched the squirrels outside busily gathering nuts, we were casually beginning the preparations for the upcoming cold season. As I walked by the bar in the kitchen I would jot down a task or two that I remembered needed doing in the near future. With Muir watching from a window in the house, Sam, Bronte and I brought the flock up from the pasture for the final time on the first day of November. We all strolled up the road, basking in the warm autumnal sunshine, leaves crunching under our hooves. As we passed the Youth Hostel, Paul waved to me as he began putting plexiglass over the old windows in the coop. In no particular hurry, he finished one and left one “to do later.” It seemed we had plenty of later.
For several days the sheep stood at the east fence watching and making comments at the goings on: not quite remembering this routine and missing the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Our hens began to molt but it didn't seem to be too bad a time to be naked. As is the nature of things, they slowed down egg production in protest to losing their feathers. The younger ladies, full and fluffy, strutted around the barnyard with a kind of arrogance in their elegance. They seemed to realize that any day they would be egg-layers themselves: only they would be fully-feathered-egg-layers.
We were all lulled into peaceful routine.
Sunday night the temperature dropped into the twenties. Without notification, winter had arrived.
After scrambling to find a warm coat and some fingerless gloves, I headed out to the post office and marveled at the trees sparkling in the morning sunshine, transformed, overnight, from sticks to magic wands. I slowed, put down my window and took in a frosty breath.
In Vermont, much of our calendar year is spent cold. Much of our warm weather is spent preparing for our cold weather and yet I never seem to see it coming. Winter arrives with fanfare but without schedule. I remember many years of putting winter coats over our kids Halloween costumes, much to their dismay. As much as I tried to call his coat a “cape,” Batman didn't buy it. “Over the River and Through the Woods” is no joke. Our traditional Thanksgiving walk (waddle) after dinner is often spent shuffling through messy snow. Days before the holidays in December, standing in the window looking out at dirty grass, feeling sure that this Christmas would be green only to wake, hours before Christmas to find piles of newly fallen snow covering that same grass. We plan, Mother Nature laughs.
Our pace changes and like those squirrels, we too begin gathering our nuts. The shed has to be finished this week alongside winterizing the Youth Hostel. Gardens need to be emptied and put to bed while garlic and tulips need to go to work. There is no rest yet. The time for standing in the window with tea in hand is coming...but not today.
This sudden change reminds me of the impermanence of all things; the good, bad and the ugly. As Maya Angelou so beautifully stated, “Chaos today does not dictate chaos tomorrow.”
While we might not be able to anticipate it, it seems important for us to accept the cold in order to fully appreciate the warm.
There is much to be learned from squirrels.
Melissa Perley