May 4
The snow finally stopped. We got about a foot and a half—unusual here on the valley floor, especially this late in the spring. Up in the mountains, they got much more. Roads will be closed for a while. The good news is, runoff from the mountain snow pack replenishes our water table. Maybe the drought will end.
Our biggest problem now is the cold front that followed the storm. The temperature dropped to twenty degrees below zero by dawn this morning. We’ve got an old wood stove out in the barn, and I built a fire in it to warm up the barn for the animals. Chickens don’t lay in the cold, and if it gets too cold, it’ll kill them. The goats will be fine, though Sarah feels bad for them despite their thick, winter coats.
The only problem is, we don’t have enough wood. I had good intentions of cutting and splitting three or four cords last summer, but somehow I just never got to it.
Today is Sunday, so everything was closed. But tomorrow, I’ll see what I can do to remedy our wood shortage.
Sarah cooked a roast chicken for Sunday dinner, with potatoes and broccoli and freshly baked French bread. It’s a store-bought chicken, not one of our own. We buy them when they go on sale and store them in the freezer. I’m still not comfortable raising chicken for meat. We’ve eaten some of our extra roosters, but I don’t much enjoy slaughtering and dressing a bird.
Certainly there’s some moral equivocation in paying for someone else to do what I do not care to do myself. Every man has his contradictions—and surely every woman, too. We do what we can in this life, and trust that God forgives us when we miss the mark.
Sunday dinner was delicious. It’s rare we eat such an elaborate meal these days. It reminds me of days past, when Sarah and I first got together, when eating made a good excuse to spend time.
Comments