Fragments From Floyd

I had a reader of the book recently say to me "You don't seem to like winter very much" after reading the "Wind in Winter" piece from the first section. I was surprised to have someone glean that impression from the reading, because I harbor no ill feelings about that season, really. But he's only read part way. He hasn't come to the passages that talk about how central the woodstove is to our lives, or about the winter walks or the smell of snow. But he's right, in a way. I do think of winters now as more of a challenge--to stay warm, to be prepared to wait out a week without power in a winter ice storm, and to navigate these roads, a challenge in the dry and clear times, all the more an obstacle with a foot of snow on them. Yes, we do think about winter differently now than when we lived in the city limits of a southern suburb.

And I suppose we also feel somewhat different, too, about rain--both it's absence and its over-abundance. It is the latter that is of concern this morning. Heavy rains may bring 3-4 inches per hour, the weather people warn, and Ann left the house for work this morning carrying her rubber boots and a hiking stick. We know from previous years that this valley can fill quickly, and the road become impassible. There's one place the roadbed just disintegrates into the stream when the valley floods quickly. Could be, she'll have to park the car at a neighbor's, high up off the creek, and walk the ridge to get home. So, you might read some greater concerns over both drought (a forest fire would be a real problem) and floods in what I write. We live here pleasantly immersed in, surrounded by and at the whim and fickle nature of nature and the elements.

And as I write this, the low, gray clouds have parted, and a single sunlit, towering cumulus thunderhead sails southeast beyond the drowned pasture, moving like a great ship against a suddenly blue sky.