the squibix family blog

Unfortunately, we were turned back; Zion by cold and discomfort, Harvey by the impossibility of finding a footing in the three feet of snow on the steps, and me by Harvey's refusal to let me use a shovel. He thought it would spoil the expeditional nature of the enterprise. Not that he wanted to give up: he whined bitterly when I turned back with Zion to look for easier footing in the front yard. But when Zion decided he actually wanted to go inside, Harvey was mollified by a "hike" across the street.

We probably went less than 100 yards, but it was over two plow piles and through deep snow all the way, so it wasn't easy. At one point I sunk in up to my waist and had some trouble getting out, so I understood how hard Harvey must have been working, up to his waist about half the time. But he loves it!

Since we were out we stopped by our next-door neighbors and invited the kids over to play. One taker was enough to provide a late-afternoon/early-evening of imaginative play, costumes, and dance, so all in all we made it through the day in fine form. Another day off tomorrow as the people in charge figure out where to put all the snow, but the forecast is for sun, so look for us to get out even more: maybe even further than a quarter mile from our house!

There's lots of snow here. Without Harvey, I got the back porch shoveled out so we could finally take out the compost. Also now Rascal once again has two doors to scratch on when he wants to come in.

In the past I've told people that chickens are no work at all, but in weather like this that's not entirely true. I've spent as much time shoveling in and around their coop as I have on the walk and driveway. Not that I mind a bit: it makes me feel like a real farmer.

I have been a little nervous about the hens, since as well as snowy it's been quite cold, but so far they're all doing fine. I can't say they're enjoying the weather, but when the snow stops blowing in at them and they have fresh straw, newly-thawed water, and plenty of scratch and vegetable scraps to peck at, they seem as happy as anyone this time of year.

Harvey likes to go look at Lego sets, but Zion's needs are simpler. Frozen has been playing on that particular television since before Christmas, and we stop by this store every couple weeks; another month or so and he'll have seen the whole movie! Out of sequence, sure, and without sound, but that's the best you can do when you have dirty hippy parents like us. When we tired of toys and television (well, he didn't really tire, but you know) we moved on to the kitchen store. The wall of cookie cutters is almost as engrossing as an animated film.

We also took in the art supply store and the cheese shop, both of which offered not a single item which would have fit in our budget, if we were even looking to buy something. But at least the cheese shop offered delicious smells for free, and the prepared-food counter inspired Zion to ask for tuna salad for supper. In the event—after I made it deli-style with capers and red onion—he declined to eat it, but Harvey and I enjoyed it a great deal. So it was all worth it!

At least, it isn't built for this much snow together with this many cars. As I sat on Mass Ave, stationary for minutes at a time, and watched the cyclists braver and wiser than I roll easily past through the slop, I wondered how much better the traffic situation would be if even, oh, ten percent of the folks in cars could be on bikes instead? Or what about a quarter? How many commuters could possibly bike instead of drive? Lots, I bet... if the infrastructure were better.

Because part of the problem is that, with the tremendous effort towns are putting into clearing the roads for cars, bike paths and sidewalks are being neglected. Sure, most of the main bikeways are now cleared shortly after each storm—for which I'm ever so grateful!—but they only get one pass for every ten or twenty on the roads, which means that they often end up with a messy inch or two of snow. They're not impassible by any means, but it does slow you down a lot. That's another reason why I wimped out yesterday.

I shouldn't have. As it turns out, side streets in Cambridge are even worse, covered with several inches of soft dirty snow still and hemmed in by cars embedded in snow banks. Those cars were probably parked there after the first storm or two, so they were already squeezing in on the road; now completely buried they turn what used to be two-way streets into narrow canyons that I felt nervous about being able to fit through. And that's just Cambridge... what must Boston be like?!

So yeah, I'm sorry I drove. I won't do it again. And if you need to get around this winter, try cycling! Even if you're not a very quick rider you'll get to enjoy the very pleasant experience of passing lots of cars... and of knowing you're no longer part of the problem, but part of the solution!

It almost got covered in the last little-ish storm, then melted out a bit, but now it's seriously gone. Good thing the snow is the fluffiest powder, or else Rascal would just walk out of here! As it is he can't hardly walk at all: I threw a stick for him this morning and going to get it he entirely disappeared under the snow, like he'd fallen in water. That's a first. So he's not totally a fan of the conditions.

Neither are the boys, actually, but I forced them out when I saw our neighbors out sledding on the pile the plow made at the end of the street. Harvey came along first, and was soon part of a pretty good scene.

Snow is just the thing to get neighbors together. Besides taking my fair share of sled runs (and then jumps off the back of the pile into the deep powder, when we moved to that). As I shoveled I also chatted with more restrained (or dutiful) neighbors about the joys of dealing with so much snow. Harvey played and played.

Eventually Mama came out with the smaller boy and the baby, and they had their own enjoyable time. Mama and Lijah watched the fun for a while, then after they went in Zion stayed out for a good while playing with the bigger kids. It was a good afternoon.

Pictures don't really do justice to the scope of this snow event. It's pretty silly looking. The back of the house is especially ridiculous, but it was too dark to photograph well by the time I got back there with the camera. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some good shots. Unless you're all tired of snow already?

In my defense, it's never been a problem before; somehow we managed without a problem the last three winters. And at least I built the thing strong! While I worried about the porch roof and the gutters and all, I didn't give a thought to the load of snow atop the henhouse and the covered run. And as the weeks passed that load went from this:

To this:

... and we've had even more snow after that! After the last bout of blowy snow I went in to the run to shovel out some of the snow that had drifted in, in order to give the poor hens somewhere dry to walk, I suddenly noticed how ominously the two-by-fours holding up the roof were bowing. Oh yeah, there's four feet of snow up on top of this roof too!

It's mostly off now (though the piles of junk I put up there for "storage" in the fall kind of complicated the removal efforts). And a thaw yesterday let me chip away most of the ice buildup around the door. But warm weather giveth and warm weather taketh away: I was actually pretty happy to have a thick blanket of snow around the henhouse to provide some insulation, but after just a couple hours above freezing it could no longer stick to the plastic roof.

And even worse, after the one warmish day the temperature took another dive, and tonight is forecast to be one of the coldest of the already pretty cold winter. So after taking that picture above I shoveled some more snow up on the roof to cover the gap. But not enough to collapse the roof. It's a balancing act.

Us, we're only dreaming of wood stoves (with our dishwasher out of commission we're dreaming of tearing it out and replacing it with a cook stove). But yesterday when we went out to the feed store to pick up the needful for our hungry hens—they have to eat a lot these days to keep warm!—I also asked for another bale of straw to keep their feet out of the ever-deepening snow in the run (not a lot gets in, but when it never melts it can only get deeper). Of course, as I should have expected, the straw bales are long-gone; we have to wait until more straw grows. That will be... a while. Look to see our consumption of pine shavings expand dramatically this spring! I asked Harvey (Zion was sleeping) if he thought we could grow our own straw some day, but he thought we needed more farm. Next November remind me: four bales.

At least we don't need the straw to fuel the wood stove! (and if you haven't read that story, you absolutely must—if nothing else, it'll make you feel better about our own long winter here!).

His language is also moving right along. He asks for food when he's hungry, and he's said (a baby version of) "brothers" a bunch of times. Of course he says "mama" plenty too. That's been going on for a while, but this evening he did something new: a little over an hour after Leah put him to bed he woke up (that's not new) but instead of crying he called out "mama? mama? mama!" with questioning inflection and everything! I was so confused: I didn't know if it was him or Zion! The next time he woke up he cried, as usual.

Do any of the developmental steps include better sleeping?