My cousin remembers her mom saying, “when spring comes, you’ll know why you stayed.” In truth, Aunt Leona, my mom, and most other Sandhill women of that day stayed because that was their only option. Being snowed in miles from everywhere, with only a two- track trail and a rattletrap pickup that had to be parked on a hill so it would start when you popped the clutch, limited their choices.
Aunt Leona mentioned going for three months one winter, without seeing another woman. I’m pretty sure that would have been during the blizzard of 1949. My mom would have been isolated for that long too. Some of the women had a jury-rigged phone line that worked off and on, so they had some outside contact. My mom didn’t, and I doubt Aunt Leona did either, at least I never recall seeing a phone in that line camp.
There’s a legend in the Sandhills about a pioneer woman who walked for many miles to find a tree so she could hang herself. Whether or not that story is true, I suspect many women of that time only managed to keep hanging on by their fingernails with thoughts of what spring in the Sandhills is like.
Last week was brutally cold but most of us had warm houses, phones and the internet to let us know we weren’t alone in our misery. Our old house has no insulation, and for some of those frigid days the temperature in our living room stayed in the mid-sixties, even with the wood stove going to supplement the furnace. But we have a supply of sweaters and warm blankets, and two dogs that like to snuggle. My mom’s generation were lucky if their husbands kept the coal bucket and wood box full, and if there were extra rags to stuff in cracks where snow sifted in. Actually, the men were generally out trying to keep the stock alive, so most house maintenance fell to the women.
By the time you get this message temperatures will be on the rise and some of us will be sniffing the breeze in hopes of a scent of green. Too early, plenty of winter left, and we know it but, having stayed, we may as well dream about what spring can be like out here.
The answer is, temperamental, at best. You’ll start the day in a parka and by afternoon can’t recall where you left it. Or the opposite. Still, just enough hope to hang your hat on.
My cousin reminded me to keep an eye out for a curlew. That’s the surest sign. Some say pelicans and blue herons won’t set foot in snow, but I’ve seen both hunkered down in a whiteout. No, curlews are the best sign, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled and be listening for their signature call.
Meet me here next week and, meanwhile, do your best. Someone might like it.