Chah-chah-change

Written by Elaina R. Bergamini

Sunday, 30 March 2008

I am tired of winter. Although the calendar boasts spring, the outdoors looks nothing like it. We got another 4 or 5 inches of fresh powder on Friday. "Fresh powder" makes it sound like something positive. It was just another blow for me. The driveway was almost clear of snow. The piles were working their way down the garden fence. This is demoralizing. This time of year, I'm ready to start digging in the dirt. In lieu of that, I attempt to change everything in my life. I prowl the house looking for things to entertain me... to use up the hours until I can garden.  Sitting and "relaxing" is no longer enjoyable or productive. Anything that I don't like gets treatment with my very critical eye. Finances? Done. Furniture? Done. Cooking style? Done. A Cardio class? When do I start? I make plans to change things in the summer. Build a sauna? You bet! What about an equipment shed? Absolutely! Learn to play the hammered dulcimer? Where do I sign up? I do this until the effort becomes overwhelming and I realize that my life looks very little like it did a month ago when winter was still supposed to be here.  My house is littered with projects- tote bags, garden shirts, knit hats, and hooked rugs. There are piles of books on every horizontal surface, loosely grouped by topic of course. My windows are lined with little pots of leggy seedlings.  And although these distractions are necessary, the clutter makes me want to burn the house down and start from scratch. But through all my efforts to change things, nothing seems to budge the drifts and piles of snow. It's not just me. The dogs are stir crazy too. Copper finds new things to chew every day. He comes running from the bedroom with a sock hanging from his stupid grin. He pulls scraps of paper from the recycling. If I'm home and it is sunny out, no matter the temperature, he wants to go out and sit in the sun. If I don't let him, he pesters me and everything else in the house until I finally give in. Sometimes, I'll find him curled up in the sun in front of the garage door- hiding from the wind, but I can't convince him to come into the warmth of the house. On sunny mornings, if the dogs are quiet and I'm paying attention, I can hear the animals in the woods from my bed. The woodpecker works on a log. I can only imagine that they must have some success otherwise why even bother, so there must be bugs wiggling around. The tops of trees are specked with song birds trying to absorb those first precious rays. And a quick trip to the chilly outside tells me for certain that the animals are stir-crazy too. But in all reality, things are not as bad as they feel- my logical self takes over for the dramatic. I visited the goat milk lady yesterday, her goats had their babies and they are sweet. They bleat and clamber over each other to be pet and loved. They sniff and nibble and blow warm, moist breath on my hands. My chickens have returned to their fully productive state. They even wander out of the coop when it's warm and desperately peck at the white stuff. And the best of all, we have more power than we know what to do with. The wind turbine spins most of the time now. We have clear, crisp, sunny days. This has dramatically improved the quality of our life. We do laundry and dishes several times a week without the generator. We turn on the electric heater in the garage. We make bread in the electric bread maker and rice in the electric rice maker. And we laugh maniacally when the wind, which gives us so much, takes away from others. So things are looking up, the month changes and with it, the weather report claims it's going to be above 50 degrees almost every day this week. I'll believe it when I see it, because at this point I have proof that nothing changes without my very direct intervention.

 

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