by Curt Kovener
As it is at your house, it is cold and frozen in the wilderness.
And also as it is at your house, I am ready for a brief…or maybe even extended… above freezing respite.
It was welcome to have a light White Christmas. Though most of us would have preferred to have not been gifted with extended temperatures from sub-zero to the teens since then.
There is still a covering of the Christmas snow in the wilderness. It makes for easier wildlife viewing. Birds and other critters can be more easily seen moving about the woodland ridges and valleys. In light of the temperatures, I prefer to view them through the window from the inside of the house.
It is an adventure to visually track winged movement on the far ridge as blue jays, cardinals, and the generic “little brown birds” fly closer and closer to dine at the nearly always emptied seed feeder in front of the house.
Even Emma & Willow keep watch over their property from inside.
The pond has about 5” of ice. I do not know if that is a record since I do not keep such tallies. But I can tell you it is more than is needed or preferred.
As I walk the front porch and back deck to bring in wood for the now always burning fireplace, the boards crack and pop more than usual. I will blame the cold weather not my added holiday winter weight for their groaning.
You may wonder why I am writing about the obvious—the overly lingering #$%*%! cold Southern Hoosier temperatures.
It is a matter of history and tradition.
Long time readers of this column will recall that when I would write about how wet the weather was in the wilderness, by the time the newspaper came out the skies dried up. And the times when I would write about how hot and parched the wilderness was, by the time you got the paper mid-week, we enjoyed a cooling rain shower.
So that is why I write about this cold, frigid weather. For all of our comfort, let us hope history and tradition remain true.