Where is the Sun?
I do not mind the cold temperatures. I am actually having to wear a coat this winter. It is nice. There have been too many winters in my life when a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans were all you needed to be comfortable. I am especially excited thinking about the lack of insects in the up-coming summer. Freezing temperatures are good for decreasing the bug population.
We have not had a winter like this in a very long time. I know that we are not having the unusual snowfall of the eastern United States. I had a friend tell me the other day that her daughter in Pennsylvania is buried under 52 inches of snow and expecting more. Thank goodness that we are not buried under, but we had a light dusting of snow last week.
We have not had the snow like other parts of the US, but we have had rain like crazy. It has not dried up at all. The ground is completely saturated. Every time that it rains, the water just runs off. It is ironic because last year we had a horrible drought. Now it will not stop raining.
I really miss the sun. I miss its warmth. I miss the vitamin D that it delivers. I am growing tired of overcast, gray, rainy days. I am not sure how many more I can tolerate. Since it is so muddy and wet, all five children have been stuck indoors. We have baked cookies and brownies. We have read books. We have played games. We have colored pictures and made valentines. Despite of all of my efforts, we are all going stir-crazy, especially the two youngest boys.
Isaac decided to draw on my newly painted wall with a pencil. Drew climbs bar stools and chairs to get into unimaginable things. You cannot even anticipate all the things that boy can try to get into. I baked a gluten-free German chocolate cake for my husband for Valentine’s Day. I iced the cake and set it on top of our entertainment center. I pushed it all the way to the wall, which I thought was overkill. I asked Jake and Kyla both to watch the boys while I went outside to help Lane with all the animals in the cold.
When I walked back into the house trying to warm myself by the fire, I looked up to see my cake. There were lines where Isaac’s small fingers removed the icing on one side of the cake. Unbelievable! How did he manage that? Then I saw a dining room chair that he had scooted up against the entertainment center. I do not know for a fact that Isaac did it, but Drew is too short to reach the cake from the chair. However, I am not ruling out his climbing abilities.
There was nothing that I could do except try to spread the icing back over the finger marks. In the grand scheme of things, this was not a big deal, but I am getting frustrated. My children need to be able to play outside. They need to run and jump. They need to dig in the dirt and climb on bales of hay. We all need the sun to come out and dry up the mud. We need the sun to feel better.
When my mom moved to Portland, she was warned about cold, rainy days. This weather pattern is expected all winter long. Some people suffer from depression because of it. Even more north into Alaska and Canada, the winter means darkness. I honestly do not know how they manage without the sun. I am longing to see and feel its warmth.
On Saturday afternoon, the sun peeked out for a few moments from behind some clouds. It was glorious! I stood in the driveway with my arms outstretched and my eyes closed soaking in the rays. Then it was gone. I guess I will start supplementing with vitamin D-3 until winter is over. But, when will that be?
The “old-timers” in my area just explained to me that thunder in February means a freeze in April. Unfortunately we had a thunderstorm last Monday. I hope that they are wrong. A freeze this late will really hurt my garden and fruit trees. Seeing how this winter is going, I will not be surprised if it hangs in until April. Until then, I will be treasuring any glimpses of sunshine.
I hear you, Lara! Here, we’re buried in FEET of snow. We broke our record from the 1800s and more is coming!
I send the kids out anyway. Send yours out too. Let them get soaking wet and muddy. Leave the muddy clothes outside on the line to get washed by the rain before putting them in your machine. They will have a blast!
Pack them up and head to the library. I did that last Friday. We stayed longer than we usually do and came home with more movies than we ever do.
Yesterday, we had church for the first time in weeks. We all needed it. I think we take it for granted when it’s the routine.
Another idea I’ve had that I think we might do yet…read The Long Winter outloud and count our blessings that we’re not dependent on the train getting through!
I’ll keep you in my prayers,
Carol
Carol,
Thank you so much for your advice. I really should let them out to play in the mud. I hear you on The Long Winter. Talk about a record-breaking winter!! It is nice to be reminded to count your blessings from time to time. We are not starving and spending our days grinding wheat in a coffee grinder to survive or twisting straw into logs to burn for warmth. Can you even imagine? Again, thank you so much, Carol. May the sun shine on ya’ll and bring spring with it too.
Lara
It is a beautiful day today, so get out there and play. You learned from the master, Mama, who taught us to love life and have fun. You should have seen her reaction to her beautiful, manicured back yard the day we played baseball in the rain for hours and left base tracks. They were there for WEEKS — she just laughed and knew the grass would come back. Just think, some folks pay big bucks for mud baths, and you and your can get them for free!!!
Can you believe the sunshine today? Absolutely wonderful. It feels so good to feel the sun on your skin. I love your comment about mud baths. Maybe I should charge admission to let people come play in my yard?
I saw your article in Countryside magazine and so checked out this blog because of it!
I am so tired of winter as well. We have had over 50″ of snow and such cold temperatures that we have basically been stuck indoors all winter. I am so ready for spring!
I am way down in South Texas a couple or three of hours from the Mexican border and the cactuses are DROWNING down here! We live in a 470 sq. ft house( me, husband and 2 boys 9 and 13 ) on 10 acres of pretty wooded land between Goliad and Refugio.(Ain’t much but praise God it’s all paid for!) The boys homeschool and do rodeo–calf and steer roping, mostly, although there has been some unauthorized talk about bullriding from time to time….And yes, they have made little roping dummies and have spent most of the winter roping them in our tiny living/eatingroom/hallway while the horses have stood miserably in the mud outside consuming mass quantities of wet hay and feed unable to be of service to them in return. The boys have even been flanking and roping the cat, but that’s another story.
There has still been so much rain even THIS far south that the septic started punching holes in the ground and gurgling and bubbling up forming a shallow pond a stone’s throw from the back of the house
which a dog and cat went to doggy and kitty heaven after consuming.
Septic Guy says the system’s working great–it’s just that the soil is so saturated it can’t take any water. He said this after digging several deep holes each one 5′ deep or so, which quickly filled with another heavy rain’s worth of water and are waiting for an unwitting child or naughty horse to fall into.(No problem, my boys know how to swim)Husband says he’ll fill them up AT SOME POINT. We also got out there and dug a levy about a foot tall around the perimeter of this area. We affectionately call our creation the “castle”. to stop the next bout of rain from collecting all around the house we have purchased a handy super-warrantied pump from tractor supply to pump any rainwater far away from the house. It pumps 1500 gals. per hour (very exciting for the guys). We thought we had the excessive rain thing licked, but more rain came and the txdot or whoever had mowed along the highway in front of our house the week before and it was clogging up the flow through the culvert in the ditch. Husband went out to clear it out a little and instead clogged it. Now we had already had to build a little levy along the ditch to keep it from flowing up the driveway towards our little home. Well now we observed as all the ditch flowed up our driveway and each second inches closer to the house. Now many people shake their heads at country homes because they often have visible “trash piles” somewhere close by and ours is one of those,I thank heaven now, because my husband dug out a 16 foot length of tubing from an old tube fence, still with the jagged fence-latch at the end and it made a perfect long hook to save our darling home(and by now, my vegetable garden full of carrots, kohlrabi,and assorted greens)from watery destruction. Working for 40 minutes in his chest waders down in the ditch he managed to clear the culvert (in the dark) and not get sucked in (I was really worried about that)Well, I LIKE that nasty trash pile now, here’s hoping for an end to the cloudy, RAINy, South Texas Longest Winter!
Adrienne,
You are a trip! I so enjoyed reading your comment. I think we would be great friends if we ever met. I can completely relate to most of what you have shared here. I am raising cowboys too. I would love to hear the roping the cat story. I hope that you and your family make it through high and dry this winter, and that you do not lose any more pets indirectly from the rain. I am glad to see that you haven’t lost your sense of humor.
Blessings,
Lara