Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (38 page)

The sky was gray all day, with a few snow flurries late in the afternoon. But then, about two hours after sunset, the storm windows on the west and north sides of the house suddenly started rattling. The wind wailed around the brick corners and sent the huge pine on the south side to whining. It sounded like a track from a horror film.

We had set up our bed in the old sunroom on the first floor. Those windows gave us a front row seat for the blizzard, which was lit up by a couple of street lights nearby. The trees and street signs were contorted in so many directions it was hard to tell which of the great lakes was sending the prevailing storm. Then, half an hour into it, there was a loud ping on a north window. Then another, and another. Then a barrage of marble sized ice pellets peppered the glass. It sounded like machine guns in a gangster movie.

“My God!” Patricia was sitting on our bed with her back against the wall. “Do you think the glass can hold up to that?”

It probably only lasted a few minutes, but to us it seemed like forever before the ice quit. It was down-right relaxing to have only the howling wind and swirling snow. We both fell asleep to the sounds of the storm.

In the morning the sky was clear and blue, and everything under it was white, or at least had some white on it. The west side of the tree trunks were caked with ice and snow. Dunes of it were humped over every bush and banked up against the buildings. In the open areas, the surface was textured like ripples on water and sparkled like crystals in the morning sun. You had to have sunglasses to look at it very long.

The wind the night before had blown from every direction, but the east. Yet, it was the back door, on the east side of the house, that was snowed shut. It led to the mud room, so it was the busiest door in the house. I had to get it open.

Heeding Chris’s advice, I had kept a snow shovel inside. With it, I dug my way out the front door and across the porch. Then I stumbled down the front steps landing face first in thigh-high snow. It hurt.

Under four inches of fluff was a hard layer of ice that was too thin to support me, but thick enough to jar my bones as I fell through it. My face felt like a thousand bees were stinging it when its flesh collided with the white stuff.

Each time I tried to stand, the fluff and crust sent my boots sliding and me crashing back down into the products of last night’s storm. I still had the snow shovel in my hand, so I used it as a cane to hoist me up. When I finally got traction, I began to wade my way around the south side of the house. Each step had a crunch before my foot sank down to the bottom with snow above my knees. By the time I got to the back door, I felt like I had just finished a day of apple picking.

After digging the door open, I trudged toward the tractor shed to fire up the snow plow. Halfway between the shed and the livestock barn, a snow spout suddenly whipped up from the rippled surface. Like a tornado, it whirled over me and then down into the orchard, leaving me completely covered with white.

I love snow!

Chris and Karen Watt said there would be plenty of work for both of us around the farm. At first, it was easier for me because of the apple picking. The work was hard but the time flew by. But it didn’t work that way for Patricia.

Her day started with feeding and caring for the animals in the petting zoo. They had Black Bellied Barbados sheep, miniature goats, pot-bellied pigs, all kinds of chickens, peacocks, turkeys and bunnies–lots and lots of bunnies. She fed and watered them, and cleaned out their pens in the morning. The hardest part was the water. Twice a day she had to carry it fifty-yards from the house to the barn in five-gallon buckets.

Most of the time, it only took a couple of hours in the morning to do all of that. Then she would go to the market and wait until there was something else for her to do. Often she would sit around all day waiting for work.

But that changed around Thanksgiving. That’s when mail orders for the holidays started coming in. Patricia went to work hand-polishing apples that she packed into gift boxes with jams, cheeses, fudge and other goodies. And there were wreaths to be made, shelves to be restocked, fudge to be cut and on Sundays there was French toast to be cooked. Every Sunday, up until Christmas, the Watt’s served brunch in the café. Patricia was the French toast chef. Everybody agreed, hers was the best ever.

In the greenhouse, twenty-one non-profit organizations decorated Christmas trees to be auctioned off a few days before the holiday. The Watts donated the trees, and the proceeds went to the group that decorated them. So through the holiday season there were lots of people in and out of the greenhouse.

With all that traffic, we had to keep the driveways, parking lots and loading pads clear. So we did a lot of snow plowing. It wasn’t a typical snow plow on the front of a truck. This was a grader blade on the back of a small, open Kubota tractor. Deep snow had to be pushed while backing up. So, most of the time I was turned in the seat, looking over my shoulder. Plowing snow at the Watt Farm was truly a pain in the neck.

I also kept one road through the orchard slightly plowed so Della could go dashing in a one-mule open-sleigh. When we first got to the farm in October, I found a small cutter sleigh in pieces in a trash pile. I had always wanted to drive a horse, or better yet a mule, in a sleigh. So I rebuilt the little cutter and hooked Della to it. We found some bells, put them on her harness and off we went through the orchard. Originally I fantasized driving it into town. But the state and town were too diligent about keeping the roads cleared. So I kept a snowy path open on the orchard road. Della got excited each time I pulled the little sleigh out of the barn.

We also used the orchard road to cross country ski. Della hated the skis. The day we bought them she watched us with great curiosity as we put them on. Then, as we skied down the road past her barn, she began to race around the inside of her paddock snorting, bucking and farting. When we returned, she angrily pawed the snow. Every time we put the skis on, she
did the same thing. Della didn’t like the idea of us sliding away with those things on our feet.

We also used that road to get to the pond so we could feed the geese. In past winters, the Mexicans herded them up to the barn and kept them in a stall. Chooey said, “It’s nasty! Geese shit on everything. And you’ve got to haul water for them to swim in.”

Everyone agreed, they’d be all right at the pond, as long as it didn’t freeze completely over. But they had to be fed. So either Patricia, or I–often it was both of us–would load corn and apples into a back pack then ski or hike to the pond once a day.

When the fourteen geese spotted us coming, it was always a loud affair. They’d honk and shriek as we approached. And there was always one who would run back and forth in front of the crowd with her neck stuck out hissing at us. While we cleared a place in the snow, dropped the apples, stomped on them (so they were easier to eat) and tossed out the feed corn, the hissing goose would continue to get closer. When she got too close, I would stomp my foot and hiss back. Off she’d run flapping her wings and honking.

One afternoon in mid--January, we go got to the pond later than usual. It had been a nasty, blowing, frigid day. We put it off thinking the weather might let up. It didn’t and nightfall wasn’t far away. So we suited up and headed toward the pond. With all the snow that had fallen and blown around that day, I knew the orchard road would be drifted over. So we walked down the town road for a quarter of a mile, then waded in knee deep powder two-hundred yards through the orchard to the pond.

When we found the geese in the rushes at the upper end of the pond, the falling snow had slacked up. As usual, the geese commenced with their boisterous greeting. But this time, after we spread out their dinner and stepped back, they didn’t charge the food. Instead, they pranced around it as they continued to honk, shriek and hiss.

I said, “What do you suppose their deal is?”

Right then Patricia grabbed my arm. “There’s only thirteen.”

We both counted a couple of times, and she was right. One was missing. It was something we feared every time we went to the pond. With fox, coyotes and dogs around, a big fat goose would make a dandy dinner for any of them.

As much trouble, and as obnoxious as they were, we had grown attached to them. So we hiked along the bank in search of the missing goose.

“What’s that out there?”

Patricia pointed to a clump of something on the ice. Where the creek flowed through the rushes into the pond was the only place that wasn’t iced over. The clump was near there on the ice about thirty yards from the bank. Suddenly, it began to flap and shriek. But it didn’t move from that spot.

I said, “It’s stuck to the ice.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Go get it.”

“You don’t know if that ice is thick enough.” Patricia had hold of my arm. “The last thing we need is for you to fall through.”

When she said that, I spotted a long broken limb dangling from a nearby oak. So I trudged through the snow and pulled it down. When I was a kid, I learned you should always hold a long piece of wood in front of you when venturing onto uncertain ice. That way, if you fall through it will catch on the ice and keep you from going completely under.

Patricia said, “Maybe I should do it. I’m lighter than you.”

“Yes, but I’m taller.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I took a long step out onto the ice and quickly scooted a few feet from the shore. The sound of cracks and snaps filled the air, and it felt like the ice sagged a bit.

“You okay?” Patricia said. “Do you think it’ll hold?”

I tried to sound convinced. “It’s okay.”

Cautiously, I shuffled toward the goose. The closer I got, the more she squawked and flopped. Her left wing was stuck in a ragged ice block that was frozen to the surface of the pond. I stopped about ten feet away and
waited for her to settle down. Five minutes later she collapsed and began to pant.

She was so exhausted that she just lay there as I wacked at the block with the limb. My hope was to shatter it so she’d be free. Instead, the block broke loose from the surface of the pond, but it was still attached to her wing.

From behind me, I heard Patricia say, “Do you think the ice will hold both of us?”

I turned around to find my bride ten feet away shuffling toward me, as she said, “I’ll grab her. You get the block.”

When I lifted the ten pound piece of ice, Patricia swooped up the goose. Then she said, “Now let’s stay as far apart as we can, and go back to shore.”

She cradled the goose in her arms and held its head with her right hand so it couldn’t peck her. I took the chunk, stepped back a couple of feet and unfolded the wing. Patricia winced as she looked up at me. “This is real crazy. Isn’t it?”

Right then a snow spout whirled across the pond and plunged us into a white-out. The goose shrieked and fought Patricia’s grip. Both of us had to take a couple of steps to stay on our feet as the pond sprang to life with loud cracking.

The white-out lasted only a couple of moments. When I could see my wife again she was covered with a dusting of snow. I said, “This is
real
crazy. You ready?”

With a nervous grin, Patricia nodded. “Easy does it.”

While we shuffled toward shore, the ice around us continued to crack. Halfway there it struck me I no longer had my safety limb. This gimp-winged goose would not keep us from going under. Suddenly the cracks and snaps sounded much more dangerous.

I said, “Stop right here.”

Patricia turned to me. “What?”

We were three feet from the bank. “The ice on the edge won’t hold both of us.”

“So what do we do?”

At that point the pond was shallow enough that if we did break through we wouldn’t drown, but we would get wet. And there was still a long frigid hike back to the house.

I said, “Think you can jump that far?”

She looked down at the big bird in her arms. Then up at me. “I don’t know. Can’t say as I’ve ever jumped with a goose before. But I’ll give it a try.”

“Okay. On three.”

When we landed on the bank, both of us lost our footing and fell down in the snow. She landed on the goose and I on the block. The goose screamed and got its head free. Then it hissed and pecked my wife twice on top of her head.

Patricia screamed. “Quit it!”

I reached over and slapped the goose in the side of its head. When it lunged at me I grabbed it by the neck. The thing sounded like it was gagging as it tried to hiss.

“Bud, you’re holding it too tight! Here, I’ve got it.”

I released the neck to my wife, as I said, “Are you alright?”

“Man, did that hurt! I’m sure glad I’ve got this hood on my head.”

She sat up in the snow with the goose in her lap. “Let’s get this ice off her wing.”

I walked to the grove of oaks to find another limb to smash it. The other geese were under the Jonah Golds I had picked back in October. When we were shuffling across the ice, they all honked and threw a fit. But they got quiet once we were on shore. Then, when I walked past them on the way to the oaks, they all hissed at me.