January 2014 - Hibernation

I went out to the barn to collect the single egg that one of my twenty chickens had improbably laid in the below-zero weather.  The egg had frozen solid and cracked. In the heat of my pocket, a little of the white leaked onto my fingers. I drew out my hand with the egg in my palm, and during the walk back to the house the tiny amount of fluid froze the egg to my palm. “Just one today,” I waved to my family with an egg dangling unassisted from my open hand. 

Ayup. It’s wicked cold. The kind that reassures you global warming hasn’t messed up everything yet. As my boogers freeze on a single breath, I try to remember that this is what makes it possible for us to afford a farm. If it didn’t get this cold some portion of the year, everyone would want to live here.

We are keeping the cold at bay with a turkey in the oven, a 1200 degree fire in the soapstone woodstove, gin in our orange juice, and digital devices for the kids. My children are zombies. After reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Jonah got the idea we should try her “too much TV cure,” which involves watching TV for two days nonstop until you never want to see a screen again. We don’t have a TV but our apple devices are equivalent. No better time than now, I figure, when the holidays are over and we wait for school to resume.  It’s time to find out what nonstop screen time does to a body. The kids had been enjoying the sled hill, which we logged this summer, but not today: they are not allowed to do anything except eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or sit in front of a digital device.  We even let them off their farm chores, which is why I was the one bringing in today’s dangling egg.

Yesterday I painted a “wheel of the year” for the kids, to help teach them about the cyclical nature of time and have fun anticipating the joys of each season.  But then it came time to paint something for January and February, my least favorite time of year. It was hard to think of something to paint. I finally settled on a giant snowflake, a skiing snowman, and a pair of mittens with a hat. This is the time of year we eat, drink, sleep, vegetate, dream and plan. I love that our life in Maine has built in down-time.  But this winter it’s pretty far down. Like in a hole, deep in the ground. Groundhog day will be here soon. We don’t have a groundhog but we do have a guinea pig. When he’s not willing to come out of his box, we shouldn’t have to either.