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Blizzard Memories- Pressurizing and Preserving Families


Blizzards- the real deal, complete with snow, wind and cold- makes me homesick.  A mild one is blowing through today and I'm homesick.  Homesick for sisters and boys.

 The smell of karosene lanterns
Hay and straw and warm barns
Candles
Beans cooking
Wood burning
Hot chocolate and coffee
Wind through the pine trees
Stomping feet
Laughing kids
Debate over checkers and politics
Reading Little House on the Prairie "The Long Winter"
Feel of quilts and scarves and the heaviness of layers
Quiet
Dangerously harsh stillness

An annual blizzard marching through our ranch and area was expected.  Partnering with electricity and water outages, it would lock us in our own little world.

Caleb was a new baby when we were living on the ranch and hit with the "Once in 100 year blizzard."  My husband and Dad were living on tractors to feed cold cows and calves between breaking ice and scooping off the roof of an inundated building.

The boys would run to the door when David came in to help him peel out of layers....and check out the ice formed on his beard.  

Dressed in snow suits as they ducked under the "door," which were blankets nailed on door frames to keep the heat in one room.  For little boys, it was a grand adventure.  

For the men in my life, it was  excruciating.  My job was to make it an adventure, to keep water in jugs and food cooked and the house warm.

A blizzard pressurizes the ranching and farming families.  They can create constant, unbelievable stress, while at the same time seasoning and preserving families and traditions.  

All that is unimportant is blown away in the wind and swept across the plains.

 The peripheal scraped clear with the wind.

 The surface and the temporary ripped violently away to reveal the real and the authentic.

 Those who did not plan well...watched cows starve and their family rescued.  Short cuts displayed.  

What was hidden came to the surface.  Minds and relationships that had suffered years of neglect and abuse...cracked.

 Churches met in homes.  Crisis counselors employed.  Hearts completely displayed.

 And still......  

 Hearts are tied tightly together, as baling twine wraps around a large bale of hay.  Together and preserved.  

While the memories are bittersweet... they draw my focus back to what truly matters.  

Life. Love. Relationship. Basic human needs.

 Allowing a day of rest for my body, mind and my soul and being wrapped in the swirling wind and snow.   

Abiding.  Preserving.

Quilts, coffee and a great book...and family.




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