Opinions of a Wolf

I keep thinking this week about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Book The Long Winter.  We’ve been slammed with snow, sleet, hail, thunderhail, thundersnow, and more almost every single day this week.  It’s dark.  It’s dreary.  Most New Englanders I know are struggling with the winter blues.  I’ve been taking to snuggling up under my electric blanket earlier and earlier at night, and all this reminds me of reading The Long Winter during the long Vermont winters when I was a kid.

Basically, in this entry in the Little House series of books, Laura’s pioneer family faces one of the worst winters ever.  Excruciating detail about the cold, the food, the clothes, and more go into the tale of how they managed to just barely survive that winter.  I’ll never forget the passage in which they hang their wet clothes out to freeze as a close approximation to drying.  Winter is just something northerners have always had to deal with.  I remind myself that at least I have a lot more entertainment and warmth than Laura did, but Laura also could just stay in the house all winter.  I have to go out and get to work.  Hibernation is just not an option.  Not to mention that it’d get lonely after a little while.

But there’s something comforting in reading about other people facing winter when you’re in the throes of it yourself.  I know some people like to read books set in the tropics in the winter, but personally I’ll always reach for tales of freezing cold and survival against all odds.  There’s a sort of camaraderie to it that only other northerners understand.

Happy weekend all!