Try It

Fleshing a muskrat hide

It was a dozen degrees this morning, the coldest of the season yet, and I knew it the moment I awoke in the thick dark of 5 a.m., because I could feel the tendril of frigid air snaking through the window opening. We’ve always slept with a window open; I can’t remember a night we haven’t, and it wasn’t so long ago that I thought it folly, just another of Penny’s quirks that I, with my enormous reserve of good nature and general kindness, deign to accommodate. But damned if the habit hasn’t snuck up on me. There’s something about waking to an immediate small understanding of the world beyond the sheltered protection of home and fire that reminds me of my place in grand scheme of things.

It’s not winter yet, but it might as well be. The animals are off pasture, and we’ve been feeding hay for the past two weeks. Already, there’s a sizable dent in our stores, but that’s ok. We know how much is there, and it’s sure enough. We’ve handled each of those bales twice already, once off the baler chute, and once into the barn, 75,000-pounds or more of lift and stack and push, and our knowledge of that hay could only be more complete if we ate the damn stuff ourselves. Which, in a way, we do.

The other night I went out with my friend Michael, a bit of a going away get-together, since he’s heading to Hawaii for the winter with his partner and year-old son. He’s a little nervous, I think: He’s maybe not so much a stick-in-the-mud as myself, but he knows the comfort of home as well as anyone, and maybe a little better. As we were talking, I got to thinking about just how much I have come to depend on winter. And not merely winter, but that deep sense of security and satisfaction that comes of knowing you are prepared. Hay in the barn, wood in the shed, and so much food in the pantry, root cellar, and freezers that you might literally be able to go a year without venturing to the grocery store.

There’s a certain urgency to making these things happen that’s maybe a bit addictive, a jangled-tired feeling, the weight of all those bales in your bones, or the way a splitting maul becomes an extension of muscles and will. These things have become my comfort zone, and as unflatteringly unadventurous as it makes me sound, I can hardly imagine giving them up, even if for only a year. “Honestly, I don’t know if I could leave for a winter,” I told Michael the other night, and he nodded. He’s put up his share of hay. He’s split his share of wood. He knows the feeling, too. But he’s braver than I, which means he’ll spend the next few months in shorts and flip flops, whilst I spend it waking up to ribbons of single-degree air sliding across my face.

Go ahead, try it. It feels real good.