our snowy road

I love noth­ing more than a weath­er emer­gency.  I put this down to my Mid­west­ern Amer­i­can child­hood where we LIVED for snow days.  Lis­tened fever­ish­ly to the local news on the evenings where snow was fore­cast, hop­ing des­per­ate­ly to find, in the morn­ing, that the accu­mu­la­tion was enough to war­rant a DAY OFF.  Lord knows what our poor moth­ers thought on such days.  “I’d give my [some­thing incred­i­bly valu­able, like one of the chil­dren] not to have the kids off school tomorrow.”

Then, when I was about eight months preg­nant with Avery, on the last week­end I was allowed to fly, I went to South Car­oli­na to sur­prise my folks who were there on hol­i­day.  At least, I sur­prised my moth­er — I think it was decid­ed at least one of them had to know I was com­ing to make sure they’d real­ly be there!  And while I was there, an enor­mous hur­ri­cane devel­oped.  I was the last per­son allowed on the last plane out, because of my advanced state of preg­nan­cy.  I arrived home in New York in a mas­sive state of excite­ment to fol­low the storm on tel­ly that I’d so nar­row­ly escaped in real life.

So when, a few days ago, a snow­storm was pre­dict­ed here in Con­necti­cut, it was but the work of a moment, with Dorothy L. Say­er­s’s “The Nine Tai­lors” play­ing on the old-fash­ioned tape play­er, for me to climb in the car and head to the gro­cery, to pro­vide us with the raw ingre­di­ents for sev­er­al sus­tain­ing meals, to get us through the com­ing cri­sis.  A lit­tle ham, a but­ter­nut squash, aspara­gus, buf­fa­lo mince and beans for chili, eggs.  And when I got home, of course, I dis­cov­ered it was dif­fi­cult even to fit these in the fridge because of the pot of chick­en stock, the left­over roast chick­en, the beets, fen­nel and car­rots I’d already stockpiled.

Overkill on storm prep, in oth­er words.

But storm it did.  Except that there was no wind.  The snow just fell, and fell and fell, qui­et­ly and gen­tly, all yes­ter­day after­noon.  And with no wind, all the snow stayed in place, on tree branch­es and roofs and fences and cars.  Just beautiful.

It fell all day as we worked a puz­zle of “Alice in Won­der­land,” played with Jes­samy, cleaned out the upstairs clos­ets, and the chili cooked… We went for a walk up the road, unplowed as yet, pris­tine and time­less, white as far as the eye could see.  When we got home, John shov­eled a path­way for us, but we could see it was real­ly point­less as the snow con­tin­ued to fall.

Avery decid­ed to make a snow angel, nat­u­ral­ly, get­ting wet­ter and cold­er than any Lon­don teenag­er would ever get.  Every once in awhile, we remem­ber clear­ly why we kept this house, when we moved away.

We came inside and read our books by the fire­light and imag­ined the snowy world to come in the morning.

This morn­ing we awoke to the stillest day you can imag­ine.  Not a breath of breeze, not a branch stir­ring.  Just silent, snow-cov­ered sen­tinels every­where you looked, with the occa­sion­al star­tled squir­rel try­ing to find its way across the branch­es and send­ing down a flur­ry of snow when he did.  Just peace.

All day we enjoyed the scenery, a true fairy­tale won­der­land.  I can’t describe the peace and qui­et!  Final­ly we went out to load the car with all the things we’d gath­ered from the clos­ets, to donate to Good­will.  John and I took turns shov­el­ing out behind and around the car to be able to move.  Then we went for a long walk, and encoun­tered our friends Regi­na and Egbert, and Tom and Mika, out on snow­shoes on the Land­mark Trust land, plan­ning a long excur­sion.  And we found Kon­nie whose hors­es occu­py our mead­ow in sum­mer, out with her dog in the snow.  New Year’s greet­ings and hugs.

“Walk in the path we make!” the snow­shoers urged, in the wan­ing almost-sun­light, as we made our way across the snowy mead­ows.  “Onward to the bench!”

To John’s Dad’s Bench, in fact, at the lit­tle swell in the hill, snugged by trees.  We all sat down to catch our breath.  Avery had come out in ankle boots and, it tran­spired, ankle socks which had trav­elled down inside said boots and when we reached the bench, she held out her feet and showed us the SNOW inside her socks!  We hit the trail back toward home, shout­ing good­byes to the intre­pid snow­shoers on their way down the trail.

A qui­et after­noon and ear­ly evening fol­lowed.  I looked inside the refrig­er­a­tor and saw left­overs com­ing out our ears, not to men­tion the pots frozen in the snow out­side our back door.  I brought in the chilli and the oys­ter stew from the back step, put them on the stove to warm, put the but­ter­nut squash in the oven to bake with but­ter.  And guess what I found when I opened the back door?  Regi­na and Egbert’s snow­shoes, lent to us for tomor­row!  Neighbors!

Avery and I had just set­tled in with the puz­zle again when we saw an unusu­al sight: car head­lights com­ing up our road and STOPPING.

Excite­ment: Anne and David and Kate had come home for the week­end, unexpectedly!

“I want­ed to shov­el their dri­ve­way all day!” John said.  And I had told him to wait, it would snow again.  He rushed out with a shov­el, meet­ing David who was rapid­ly clear­ing a path in the 15 inch­es of snow, up to their door­way.  Avery slipped into the car to sit with Katie, and I ran home to put a high­er light under the chilli and to put the chick­en soup into the microwave, pack it all up with some sour cream and grat­ed cheese, take it over to them.

“You sound awful,” I said to Dave, and he said, “Been sick.  Kate 102 yes­ter­day, I’ve lost my voice.”

So it was espe­cial­ly nice to hand them the warm food, see lights go up in their house across the road, exchange hugs.  They trooped inside, we hugged again, I came home to get our own din­ner ready, to clean out the fridge.

A clas­sic day in our road, then: much the same whether it’s the hot sum­mer after­noon of a birth­day par­ty for the house, or a snowy stormy after­math.  There are always the neigh­bors, and the exchange of favors and food and hap­pi­ness, what­ev­er the sea­son.  That’s our road, and why we love it, no mat­ter the weather.

But snow is FUN.

Red Gate Farm Chilli

(serves 8)

2 tbsps olive oil

1 white onion, minced

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

2 lbs buf­fa­lo mince (or beef, if you must)

2 pack­ets McCormick­’s Chili Seasoning

2 soup-size tins red kid­ney beans, with liquid

1 soup-size tin black beans, drained

1 cup le Puy lentils, cooked

1 large can whole plum tomatoes

1 tbsp chilli powder

2 tsps ground cumin

sour cream to garnish

grat­ed ched­dar cheese to garnish

cilantro leaves to garnish

This could­n’t be eas­i­er, if I tried.  Sim­ply saute the onion and gar­lic in the olive oil, then add the buffalo/beef and stir until cooked through.  Add the beans, lentils, toma­toes and sea­son­ings and stir well.  Leave at a sim­mer for least an hour, up to three hours.

Ladle into soup bowls and add sour cream, cheese and cilantro as you wish.