A couple of days ago the temperature rose above sixty, which is becoming more common for winter it seems.
We made a trip to the reservoir to take a walk. We weren’t the only ones with that idea. There were more cars than I have ever seen there.
Finn saw a melted section in the ice. “Oh good!” he said. “Part of it is melted. Now Calico Jack can get out!”
He went on to explain that Calico Jack’s pirate ship had sunk to the bottom of the reservoir and now with the melted section it would be able to reemerge. How it got there from the sea is a mystery but you know those pirates are very clever and mysterious.
It was nice to get out and walk for a while without trudging through the snow. I wouldn’t say it has been a treacherous winter but we’ve had our share of the white stuff.
Erin has been reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder series to Finn and as it turns out is now reading The Long Winter.
I have to say I look forward to it as much as Finn. As soon as she starts to read I feel that same relaxed secure feeling that I felt as a child listening to my own Mom. And there is something in knowing that the Ingalls are going to be ok. No matter what happens you just have the feeling that it’s all going to be ok. Because regardless of the drama that presents itself, the Ingalls and those that live their world, respect each other and always find a way to work together to resolve the given conflict.
For the Ingalls' winter it was months of blizzards. They were cut off from supplies and persisted on very little, eventually twisting hay together to burn for firewood. Erin’s nightly readings have highlighted how much we have to be thankful for right now.
It’s hard to imagine a snow storm where we would have to tie ourselves to a rope in order to find our way back to the house.
In one chapter, which was actually in the previous book On the Banks of Plum Creek, Charles Ingalls is caught in a sudden blizzard on his way back from town and can’t find his way home. He spends 3 days in a small dugout on the bank of the creek only to find when the storm subsides that he was just yards from his house.
Finn couldn’t understand how he could be lost when his house was so near. “Why couldn’t he see that he was so close to home?” he said.
“Because the storm was so bad,” Erin said. “There was so much snow flying all around him that even though his home was right there, it was impossible for him to find it.”
Actually when put that way it does sound a lot like this winter. But not the weather. Heres to an early thaw and all of us finding home.