In Vermont, we don't define our seasons by the what calendars say. They tell us that winter officially begins December 21, so until then, by rights we should be using the term “fall” However, any self-respecting Vermonter knows that winter begins when it very well pleases, with or without warning. I've taken kids trick or treating in costumes with long johns poking out from beneath them and woolen face masks under Mickey Mouse masks....and paid for it with a lot of grumbling.
However we can, normally, count on it being stick season until sometime in December. Don't bring this up with my father or you risk the story about the blizzard we had to drive through to get to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving in 1970-something.
We want brown grass until the week before Christmas and then we want a pile of snow for Santa. Hay to Hallmark.
Obviously the temperature varies as well. When you are caring for animals you have a bit more appreciation for [the temps] temperatures that hang in the thirties, so that when you take off gloves to fill feeders you can actually feel your fingers while doing it.
This year it was me doing the grumbling about the weather- which is the calling card of any true Vermonter; when it rains it should snow, warm should be cold: you get the picture. The report from the Farmer's Almanac (the bible) was for a blustery winter, cold and snowy. This is based on very specific scientific methodology: whether a certain caterpillar has more or less fuzz on it. So I was geared up for cold. Christmas came and went with some snow, more of a brown ground cover, and the temperatures stayed unseasonably warm, in the 40's.
And then the page turned on the calendar. The post-election temperatures were going up while the mercury was going down. The weather predictions on the Internet were calling for a big snow storm that was turning south and going to miss us: we might get a few inches. We peered over Josh's shoulder to see on his phone the exact moment the snow would begin...10:32. We stood in the window at 10:30 and waited and I felt slightly embarrassed as I stood watching. Like The Cloud and Black Holes, I'm not convinced this is something we humans can, or should be able to predict. At least in time increments of minutes. We waited for quite a bit past 10:32 however: having been a teeny bit tardy once or twice in my life, I understood. Finally it did begin to snow, to our delight. And it snowed and it snowed all day long much past a few inches, in fact when all was said and done, we got over a foot.
We began to wake to the rumble of the snowplow each morning before daylight. If we rushed outside and gave a casual wave we might get him to lift his plow for the length of our driveway saving us a lot of heavy shoveling: or we might not depending on whether or not the plow truck driver was fully caffeinated.
We feed animals and collect eggs twice daily, morning and evening. Our animals have learned [ an adjusted meaning of the term “crack of dawn” In Perley-time that means an 8:30 dawn. At our farm the early bird doesn't really get the worm...until a bit later. As January moved forward the temperature plummeted to sub zero, especially at night. When we would go out in the morning and I would need to take off gloves to cut open hay bales or test the waterer in the hen house, my fingers would ache from the cold. We were in a cold snap.
Our hen house has two black lights on the ceiling so that the chickens can stay warm but it can remain dark in the coop at night. They get up on their perch and huddle together shoulder to shoulder. The lights keep them pretty toasty so when I walk in there are contented chicken murmers.
The sheep barn was designed for air flow. Sheep need cross ventilation to prevent a variety of illnesses. This, and the big sliding doors that remain open, make it chilly, no, icy in the blue months. The mother in me overrode the farmer in me and I bought a warming light for the barn. When the temperatures dropped to -25F one night, on went the overhead light. I understand Paul's eye rolling, but it made my heart warmer to do it. The next morning I did have the last laugh when every one of them was inside the barn, some with a chicken on their back, enjoying a respite from the frigid night and getting an early start on a summer tan.
There is no season like winter to reinforce why we are farming. When you have to roll out from underneath flannel sheets and wool blankets (of course) to pull on Muck boots, hats and gloves and crunch outside, your breath steaming like the tea kettle you put on before leaving the house, there has to be a good reason. There is no purposefulness like animals needing food. Ovines are ruminants and need to keep their stomachs moving: sleeping in is no longer an option for us. They stand at the fence of their winter paddock and watch for any movement from the house. Even our window shade going up is signal that breakfast is coming. They don't bellow or yammer, they simply stand in a line and wait, like kids in a school cafeteria. The chickens have come to prefer laying eggs in the sheep barn where we have four laying boxes put up for them. When we first open that coop door and they beeline it for the sheep barn, it looks like they have to use the bathroom....really badly.
Bedding needs replacing, water cleaning and the barnyard needs daily scraping, the key word being daily. No day off. Sam stands near the barn guarding against any possible sheep escape and always faithfully waiting for me to finish chores so that I can then feed him as well. Bronte has an early start on the feeding process and hides near the chicken compost [and eats] eating poop until we holler for her to stop.
Purposefulness=everybody has a job.
There is talk of a Nor'easter coming this week. 2:45 on Tuesday. I'm hoping that we remain right its path so that we get every inch. But I'm not-so-secretly happy that Alexa cannot quite accurately outsmart Mother Nature and hope that it begins at 3:15.
(Follow us on Instagram @paulperleycellos)
Melissa Perley