Refuge Farms (www.refugefarms.org)

No, no, no…. not the ice cream kind! I mean a real, wind-blowing, drift making, traffic-stopping, event-canceling snowstorm! And this storm is the first storm that we’ve had, that I would call a blizzard, in several years! This “winter” up here in Wisconsin this year has seen 40 degrees above in January and 30 degrees below in February. It has seen brown ground – no snow! – for most of the season. And just last Friday night, it rained here at Refuge Farms! Rain complete with thunder and lightning! The earth appears to be traveling through her menopause, doesn’t she?


Now, I’m not that old – really! I consider myself still relatively young. But I can honestly say that we don’t have blizzards like we used to when I was a kid!!! I remember as a kid getting all bundled up and going out to play in the snow. It’s what we did in the afternoons. We had no Internet, no Play Stations, no cell phones, and no hand-held electronic gizmos that beep and buzz. We went outside and expended our pent up energy. We played. In the snow. Tons of snow!

At my house in the country, that could mean climbing to the top of the snow banks made by my Father and his bulldozer just to slide down on my butt. Rusty, the dog, would be right behind me barking and chasing me only to run right smack in to me when I landed at the bottom of the hill. And then we would wrestle. What fun!

Or if the snow banks weren’t high enough for me, I would use the snow banks to climb up on the roof of the chicken coop and then – bravely – jump off of the roof in to the monstrous drift that always formed on the south side of the coop. Why did this require bravery, you ask? Well, I always had this mental vision of me jumping off the roof right in to the huge drift only to fall through the snow so far that I disappeared! And no one looked for me until I didn’t show up for supper!!! And I would imagine that Rusty would bark and bark but he always barked, so no one really paid much attention to him. So, jumping off the chicken coop roof in to the drift would require, absolutely require, me to clamp my eyes shut and scream as loudly as I could as I went air bound! Only to land in the snow and then wrestle with Rusty once more. When we both were full of snow everywhere, we would swim our way off of the drift to wander off and find something else to do.

When the snow was fresh, we made snow angels. At least I did. Rusty would stand over me and wag his tail so that he dropped snow in my face. More squinting and more screaming!

Behind my Dad’s shop was a small pond and we would sometimes wander up to the pond and slip around – on purpose! I think of that pond sometimes when now today, not intentionally, I find myself slipping around on ice again. Only this time I’m not nearly so graceful and falling now hurts! But good thing I practiced this ice thing when I was a kid…or I would be on my bottom even more as an adult!

When Dad would plow snow, I would be shaking with excitement! Many times, I would ride with him ride on the bulldozer. Yup, the bulldozer – without a cab, yet! That required me to watch his feet and his hands to anticipate when he would stop. When he would be backing up. And when he would be climbing a snow bank to pile the snow even higher!!! I watched and learned how to turn, how to stop, how to raise the blade… Everything he did I watched and watched, thinking that some day I would do that.

That some day came when I was eleven years old. Duluth, Minnesota had just experienced a record-setting blizzard with snowfall, winds, and cold. And we (or my Dad) needed to move some of his equipment and plow snow. But it was so cold that the big equipment wouldn’t start. So I was needed to pull the equipment with the bulldozer while my Dad drove the equipment. Yikes!!!

I can still see my Mom standing in the dining room window watching us with her kitchen towel clenched in her hands and her arms folded over her heart! Fear was as plain as day on her face! What if I forgot how to stop??? My Dad had just shrugged and said that then Mom would see me “and the dozer just coming out the other side of the shop!” He was calm because he knew I would stop when I hit the ditch, if nothing else!

And then one other time, I needed to drive the bulldozer while we pulled his pickup. His brand new pickup! The truck had frozen up somehow. I don't remember those specifics, I just remember how Dad had looked at me and Mom said something like, "Oh no, not again!" But my Dad’s grin told me to get my outside clothes on because I was going to drive the bulldozer!!!

When the roads were good, it was customary that I would spend Saturday afternoons at Cobb School skating at the rink. I loved to ice skate. Today, when I think of it, I realize that I had very strong ankles as a kid. Would not be a pretty picture if I tried that skating thing today!

But Cobb School had a big rink with a portion of it reserved for the hockey players. We figure skaters could stay on the other side and twirl and skate backwards and just go round and round and round. We would start a whip going but Ole Charlie would wander out of the warming shack to break up the line. And only now, as I am keying this, do I realize that Charlie knew the whip was starting long before he meandered outside. The ole guy was giving us a bit of time and a chance to play whip before he broke it up. Cool. Charlie the Rink Monitor. Charlie with no teeth. But Charlie the dependable. Always there and always keeping a fire going in the big kettle stove in the middle of the shack. A hot fire to warm our feet and melt the ice off of our skates. Now that was ice skating!

I don’t remember shoveling as a kid. I’m sure I did but my memory doesn’t remember. There were just too many other things to do in the snow that were so much more fun and those fun things are the ones I have chosen to remember.

Today I have to play my Dad. I need to plug in the Allis D-17 and plow snow – without a cab! I will bundle up and I will wear my chopper mitts just like my Dad. And I will use my feet and my hands almost like I was driving the bulldozer like my Dad. And I will squint in to the wind just like my Dad. And I will hunch up my shoulders when I feel the snow making its way down the back of my neck just like my Dad. And I will make a path in the fresh snow and the drifts so cars can get in and out of the driveway.

And I will take care of my family, just like my Dad did. Only my family is The Herd. I will let some of them outside when the winds calm down and I will refill stock tanks and open doors that have been closed against this brutal wind of this blizzard. But I will do all of this because I want to and because I realize it is my job to take care of my family.

What great examples I had from my parents! How lucky I was to grow up in a home where there was love and respect and laughter and I knew I was wanted! As an adult, I now realize my good fortune and fully appreciate the blessing that was my parents.

All of this just from a blizzard – a real, honest, normal winter blizzard. Hurray! Finally! It’s winter again! I gotta go – gotta go play my Dad!

Enjoy the journey of each and every day,
Sandy and The Herd