Winter woes

Christmas is over. The New Year is here. The shortest days of winter are over and they are lengthening again. I’m not ready to cheer yet, however. December and January are far from being my favorite time of the year, with wet, cold and darkness controlling the world around us.

I spent too many years when this time of the year meant cold and wet, with mud and manure on my boots, and splashed where I didn’t want it. Often milking meant washing the stuff from the cow’s udder before sitting down to milk. If Shadow was feeling ornery, which was often, because she was a temperamental Jersey with an attitude., she seemed to delight in switching a long mucky tail around my head. I finally outsmarted her by tying her tail down before I started milking.

Today our cows seek shelter in or behind the shed to avoid these valley wind gusts blowing wet and cold. The chickens huddle together. The dogs stick their noses out the opened door and back up. They respond reluctantly to the order, “Go outside and do your duty. Go way out!” They sort of “drag their feet” as they obey, then rush back and beg to come back indoors.

The cat puts a tentative nose out, then stands quietly deciding whether or not she wants to go out, or to use her cat box. Outdoors almost always calls her out unless there are wind and rain combined.

I no longer go out in the storm—I can no longer walk around. Jim feeds the cows and outside critters. The cows bawl at him outdoors, whenever they see him, even walking up to where they can look in the windows to yell at him. They know where the grub comes from and make sure he can’t forget.

He scatters the hay to give all a chance at the hay to eat, but the greedy ones run poor gentle Annie away, running back and forth from pile to pile to keep her away from the feed, and gentle Annie lets them do it, though she is the matriarch of the herd.

I’m glad we’re here in the valley, where water runs off instead of piling up frigid and white. It’s not that I go outside, but years of wading in snow and muck all winter linger in memory as miserable, nasty nuisances I want to avoid.