Daffodils in the snow

As New Englanders, our roots are deeply planted; but like our towering pines in the wind, we tend to bend. We adapt no matter the weather.

The last weekend in January, my husband and I headed to the summer place. Bright sunshine and balmy air belied the season.

Pulling into the backyard, I noticed that the daffodils, sheltered by the stone wall, had broken through the hard earth and were ready to bloom.

While I walked around the yard, I yearned to open the shed, grab a lawn chair and sit with my face turned toward the sun.

We drove down the street, parked on the beach, cranked down the windows and stared at the Creator’s handiwork. Reflecting the blue sky, the Sakonnet was as calm as a lake in June.

I jumped out of the cab and sunk into the soft sand. With the warm wind at my back, I walked along the water’s edge, longing to kick off my shoes.

After a long absence, I reluctantly returned to the truck.

Fast forward, ten days …

First came the forecast: The meteorologists at New England Cable News told us to expect 17 inches of snow in our neck of the woods.

Eight hours and eight inches later, wet, sticky snow covered everything as far as the eye, in limited visibility, could see.

I had filled the bird feeder before the storm, and the only visitors we received that day were cheerful chickadees that whistled “peter-peter-peter” while darting back and forth from birdseed to bush.

When the snow stopped, my husband ventured out into the dark to plow the driveway. On one of his last passes near the barn, he heard a loud crack. He was sure that a hundred-foot pine tree would topple during the night.

Consequently, we slept in the living room, since our bedroom was in the path of the suspected tree. The next morning my husband found the huge limb that had smacked the roof of the barn before breaking into pieces on the ground. Thank God, the tree was sound.

Today, three days later, the second blizzard hit.

This morning we lost power as soon as the first flakes began to circle in the 40- to 50-mile-an-hour gusts. For the first time this season, the generator hummed.

It is now 10 p.m., and the flakes are still falling. We will dig ourselves out tomorrow, and I think of those daffodils, just yearning to poke a hole in all that snow.

   

There's no place like home in a blizzard

The generator hums rhythmically in the background as I write on my battery-powered Nook.
The simple things in life are best -- heat, light and well water -- and we have survived yet another massive storm, this time a blizzard named Nemo with hurricane-force winds that dumped about two feet in our backyard.
A driving ban is in effect for Massachusetts and Rhode Island so there is no place to go.
Yet as difficult yesterday was and these next few days will be, they cannot compare to the blizzard of 1978.
A stay-at-home mom with an 11-month-old daughter, I kissed my husband goodbye that morning, and little did I know that I would not see him for five days.
It snowed and snowed and snowed ... and it didn't stop for days.
While the power flickered, it never went off; and I never lost telephone service, even though the line hung low across the street and was swatted by passing snow plows.
My husband worked for a large corporation, and because he was in charge of maintenance and security, he was the last one to leave that day -- only by then the roads were impassable.
Back at home I fared pretty well. The cupboards were well-stocked. I cared for my daughter, and while she slept I read. But I worried about my husband.
Meanwhile, he was living off the vending machines in the lunchroom. When he ran out of money, he pilfered change from the secretaries' desks, leaving I.O.U. notes behind. He slept in the rafters, warmed by a small generator-powered boiler that kept the chemicals just the right temperature.
Five days passed and still dressed in the same clothes, he made a break for it, driving away from the plant despite a driving ban. He made it through a city and two towns before he was stopped at a roadblock.
Abandoning the vehicle, he walked the rest of the way home, another ten miles.
I cried when I saw him walking down our street.
Today, in the aftermath of this latest blizzard, we are doing the best we can, accepting the fickleness of Mother Nature in stride.
We toss another log in the woodstove, admire the beauty outside our window, and thank God we are together.