Seasons Change, Winter Comes

Looking out the window this morning, it's hard to believe that less than a week ago, I was running around outside in a blouse and silly little shoes without a jacket on. Thanksgiving was an absolutely gorgeous autumn day with sunshine and temps in the 50s. However, by the time we wrapped up our Thanksgiving gathering in the early evening and headed home, we were driving through an all out blizzard with about 10 ft of visibility. Welcome to northern Minnesota.

It seems that this snow is here to stay for the long haul. We have about 8 inches in the woods now and the bay is doing its very best to ice over. With snow in the air every day since Thursday, I doubt we'll end up with nice skating ice like last year, but that's okay - wouldn't want to get spoiled.

I'm not the world biggest cheerleader for snow and winter, but I will admit that it's a heck of a lot nicer to look out the window and see a winter frosted world rather than a dead, brown, blah one. The new winter scene outside also lends a certain legitimacy to my recent round of Christmas shopping. And since the car is still in the shop (yay me! #sarcasm #CanIStartAKickstarterFundraiserForThis?!?) I don't have to hyperventilate about winter driving yet. (And only mildly feel as though I'm on house arrest.)

It's been a decent week back at the grind. Monday was basically a wash (damn you Cyber Monday and your distractions!), but yesterday I actually got down to business and am thisclose to wrapping one of my major November projects. Woo-hoo! Also, let's all note that I've posted 13 posts so far this month. That hasn't happened since May!

Has the snow found you yet?

 

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On Being Brave

This morning, I woke up to a winter wonderland. If you've been reading this blog long enough, you know that this didn't exactly make my day.

Okay, so normally, an inch or two of fresh snow outside the window doesn't bother me too much -- it is rather pretty -- but today's snowfall marked my first winter driving experience of this season. Considering that last winter's driving experiences ended abruptly with me on my side in the ditch, it's fair to say that I've been dreading this day. Add to that dread the fact that I'm still adjusting to the manual transmission Baja. How excited was I about the snowfall outside my window? Not very.

But I had a dentist appointment to get to. No amount of dread was going to make this better. I was going to have to be brave.

"The roads are okay," Andy said over the phone from work. "Just be careful. Use the gears to slow down."

I left the house with hour and forty five minutes to spare until my appointment. The trip to town normally takes an hour. When I pulled out onto the main highway, I realized Andy's assessment of "okay" might be a little exaggerated. OKAY?! I felt the hysteria rising my throat. The road hadn't even been plowed.

Nevertheless, our hero presses on . . .

A little ways down the road, after I'd waited at the bottom of a ginormous hill for a very minor accident involving a pickup and a truck and trail to clear out, it struck me: if police officers are just a step away from being criminals, maybe being brave is just a step away from bloody stupid.

On the other hand, I was learning some important lessons. It turned out driving a manual through the snow and slop wasn't so bad. The Corolla had handled like a hockey puck in snowy conditions; the Baja handled like a tank. "This is amazing," I thought. I shifted easy between the gears. I didn't have to touch the brake pedal at all. The car slowed by itself whenever I took my foot off the gas. I felt firmly glued to the slippery road. I giggled a little when I passed an (undamaged) Camry on its side in the ditch. I mean, who does that? (Don't answer that.)

However, by the time I was halfway down the Trail, it was apparent that I wasn't going to make my appointment.  Do you know how long it takes to get into town when you're averaging 28 mph and you've got 55 miles to chug away at that speed? (Okay, I could do the math, but that's never been my forte.) It takes a long time. Like two hours long.

I pulled into Andy's workplace, called the dentist's to reschedule, waited around long enough for the plow to pass me (I'd seen the plow coming up the Trail pretty early into my journey down the Trail, so I knew he must have made the dead end loop and was not far behind me), and kept on going. Chug, chug, chug.

I'll admit, I wasn't having the time of my life. Nor did I feel particularly brave. To be honest, I felt more boneheaded than brave. Driving through all this crap and still not making it to my appointment?  What was the point of that? This farce was nothing but a freakin' waste of time. Think of all the things I could be getting done if I'd just stayed home.

My mood changed considerably when I finally hit dry pavement. I'd just survived my first winter driving of winter 2011-2012. . . . to put it in Bridget Jones speak, feeling rather rockstar-ish.

However, the question's still hanging out there:

Brave or bloody stupid?

Still can't tell.

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A rather cruddy post

There's no denying that winter's long in northern Minnesota. It's common knowledge that you should have a hobby to help bide your time in these frozen days. When it's -30F out, everyone's in want of a thrilling diversion from the dark, long nights like knitting, cooking, skiing  . . . . crud kicking!  

What's winter crud, you ask? Why, it's the wonderful brown substance that forms when snow mixes with road salt. It has a penchant for clinging to cars' mudflaps and frames and is often found in big blobs along road shoulders.

And crud kicking? It's the casual, noncompetitive sport I learned from my father of kicking crud wherever you find it. If you see some crud built up on your car's mudflaps: tap it. If you see a big blob of crud on the shoulder of the road: shatter it with a wind-up kick.  

There's only one rule to the sport of crud kicking, which my father taught my brother and I at an early age: Always tap a ball of crud lightly before giving it your best "soccer ball" kick to make sure it isn't frozen solid. (Your toes will thank you for this.)


Oh the joy in kicking the mud flaps and watching the thick layer of crud fall and shatter on the ground. The excitement in revealing the true exterior of your vehicle. The pride in looking at all brown gunk you've just dislodged and loudly exclaiming "Wow, look at that crud!"

It might seem to be a pointless pastime, but that crud can actually build up to the point where it affects gas mileage.

A crud kicker's job's never done.

(Let's just add this to my sporadic "you know you're a redneck when . . . " series, eh?)

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Four Star Meal at Five Below Zero

Who doesn't the love the mid-winter?

Oh, that magical time when you can't remember a world without snow and you cease to believe there ever will be a world without snow. When you start looking at your significant other as though they have a second head and begin to believe they were placed on this earth, in this cabin with the sole intent of driving you bonkers. That my friends is the indicator that your cabin-fever-o-meter might just be soaring off the charts. Run, don't walk, out of that front door. It's time to get out of the cabin.

On Sunday, Andy came home prematurely to deal with the whole ice dam situation and effectively threw the remainder of the day into a tailspin. I don't know about you, but I can't get anything done when Andy's around, even when he's quietly sitting in the other room. I knew as soon as he walked through the door at 12:30 that my work day was done.

Just the other day, Andy had declared himself "in the mood for a Crooked Spoon dinner."

I needed to record my latest radio commentary in town and neither I nor my stomach were up for the fare served at our usual restaurant haunt that Andy was clamoring to "get a quick burger at." "Why don't we go into town and go to the Crooked Spoon," I suggested. It was an idea about as logical as the time we set out to drive 30 miles, one way, for a beer.

Still, we set out, in the Corolla, on glare ice roads. The Corolla does impressively well on snowpack conditions, but gets a little shaky on glare ice. As we moved forward, I could feel the car slipping ever so gently. "Oh this was a good idea," I muttered. Town was 55 miles away. We were going about 27 mph. This was going to take a while. 

But we did make it to town. I recorded my commentary in the peace and quiet of the Sunday afternoon radio station and then we headed down to the Crooked Spoon for a winter feast of duck on alfredo pasta and homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes.All those nasty, cabin feverish moments started to slip away as quickly as a bit of melted butter on my tongue.  

"Look at us," said Andy, swirling his glass of cabernet. "Having a four-star dinner in five below zero."

Full of good food, we headed home. I shimmied on down the road at a reckless 35 mph. As I poked long, a car behind me quickly caught up to me, raising the hackles of my type A driving personality. Who did they think they were? "Back off buddy," I yelled into the rearview mirror. I planned to pull over at the next feasible stuff, but the vehicle had other plans. They passed me.  It was the county sheriff. (You know you're a cautious driver when . .  . .) We hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

How do you battle cabin fever this time of year?

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Where Streets Have No Lanes

If you've read this blog for a while, you know I'm no great fan of winter driving. One might wonder why I ended up spending each winter deeper and deeper into the woods and, truthfully, I don't really know how this keeps happening either. This year finds me tucked back on a road filled with steep hills and sharp curves and sometimes, even steep hills with sharp curves. In fact, it's not uncommon for cars to go sliding off said hills and curves and into the woods for a fluffy, but abrupt stop at the base of a jack pine tree.

Now that everyone under the sun is home for Christmas and the Corolla is back from the shop with new brakes (thus losing its nickname "Squeaky"), it seems I'm running to town every other day. I love the chance to see everyone, but each trip to town, I must face my fears of sliding on ice, not making it up hills, or hitting moose. Not to mention that the trips take forever. On these snow-packed roads, I consider speeds over 45 mph a little reckless. (Call me Grandma, but I'm not into being the damsel in the ditch.)

Lots of times when I make the 55-mile trip to town in the winter,  I can count the number of cars that pass me on one hand. And that's a good thing.

It is rare for the main road to be reduced to bare pavement. The road's snowpack means winter driving rules and winter driving rules are not that different from winter parking rules: you know, in the absence of parking lines, you just stop your car in a parking lot in the general vicinity of  a parking space. The winter world is all about the path of least resistance and on Monday when I toodled into town, I was amused to see the road no longer has curves. Instead, the vast majority of drivers have taken to making multi-lane diagonals on the curves.  

Yellow line, what?

In the winter, in the woods, our lives are dependent on our isolation. (The road into the cabin in just barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other during the summer months.) There isn't really room for two cars on these roads.

So what's a girl to do?

I just grip the steering wheel with both hands, pray to all the saints I know, and hope for a Christmas miracle.

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Cue the Christmas Carols

We got snow this weekend. Around noon on Saturday, the fluffy white stuff started fluttering down. By Monday morning, a good five inches had come down. Some of the snow trickled away yesterday afternoon as temps got above freezing (although only to about 35 F) but it's still looking like a winter wonderland out there.

It should be mentioned that the Corolla's brakes have been making a God-awful noise as of late. The kind of noise that makes you avoid braking whenever possible, the kind of noise that causes pedestrians to give you quizzical looks when you pull up to a stop sign. So I've been trying to keep the old girl off the road until we can her in to have her brakes replaced. I'm also a reluctant winter driver. I start to scheme about how to drastically reduce my driving when I see that first snowflake fall from the heavens. So when book club today was hosted by my closest neighbor (who is about my age and lives just over yonder with her husband and their baby), I wondered if I really had to drive over there. After all, our road hadn't been plowed . . .

"Just walk over the powerline," Andy said when I mentioned it. Of course! The idea of it dawned on me with  forehead smacking obviousness. The shortest distant between two places is a straight line and let me tell you, the road between my house and the neighbor's house is not straight at all. It is one twisty-turvy mess. So this morning, with a batch of hot white chocolate scones in a basket in my backpack, I set off down the powerline.

The walk was easy, except for one tricky part where I had to scramble up a cliff and the views were spectacular. I felt a little like a character from fairy tale. Or at the very least, like Pa Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie fame.

25 minutes later (I stopped to take pictures) I emerged behind the neighbor's cabin. I felt slightly exhilarated. I will not be isolated at the end of the earth this winter! I am a mere 20 minute trek away from people my own age. I thought about bursting into the cabin yelling, "Now I can come rile up your baby and hand him back when he gets tried, cranky, and stops making that cute cooing noise, all the time! Isn't this great news!?!"

Of course, I don't plan to play the "bad auntie" card too often. But it's good to know we're never quite as isolated as we might think. And of course, once the lake freezes over, it becomes even more straight forward to move around this quiet corner of the world.

Cue the Christmas carols. The snow has come, winter is upon us, and all is well. (Well, unless you're the Corolla.) 

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