Winter fades.....March 15th, 2011

I have not posted in a while. Old Man Winter has kept us very busy in our first year at Pen-y-Bryn. I could write that we spent our winter battling snow storms, but that isn't exactly true. The study of horsemanship has taught us well. We no longer battle against anything that outweighs us by several thousand pounds. We've learned to move with that kind of energy, absorbing it, and waiting it out. Dave spent a lot of his time on the tractor, patiently taking snow from one place and moving it to another. Our neighbors did the same. That's what people do in the north.

Every morning, the horses greeted us with their steamy breath, like five dragons on an English moor. We cracked icy buckets, navigated Mighty and Morgan through snowy labyrinths, and hoped the snow didn't get so high that the horses would simply step over their fence to freedom.

We never had the chance to put the end doors on the barn so on the worst nights the wind would howl right down the aisle, making things really unpleasant for us, but not so bad for the horses who stayed cozy in their stalls and safely out of the worst of it. On those nights, we couldn't speak to each other. The wind was so wicked and wild it took our voices and carried them off. We got the feeling that this wind could do whatever it wanted with us; maybe peel the barn roof back and carry us all off to who knows where. We tried really hard not to wage battle with the wind.

This winter has been given the title of the worst Connecticut winter since 1978. I think we broke some sort of snowfall record in January, over 6 feet of snow. That could be true. I don't know anything about breaking records as I've never been the competitive type, but it was a good old-fashioned, story-book winter. That much I know.

Here at Pen-y-Bryn, we spent winter in a snow globe, under a dome of never-ending snowfall that drifted into every nook, every lonely path, through the garage door, and into Dave's workshop. We spent many a dark night reading by the fire while a new fury raged against our window panes.

Still, it's March 15th, and we can see grassy spots. The hills are snow-covered, but the Mourning Doves are cooing and there's a chipmunk busy motoring along between tree stump and rock wall just outside my window.

Today, Kelly and I picked out our spring chicks.

Spring is just around the corner.