I Love Maine Winters - Part I
by Lill Hawkins
You know winter has gone on too long
when your spouse says "Good morning,
Sweets," and you snap, "Do you have
to be so sarcastic?"
When your son says, "Mom, we're getting low on milk" and you snarl,
"No problem. I'll just shovel the driveway and three or four roads and
whip right on into town and get some."
By the end of a long winter in Maine (and this year's seems to have
gotten an extension from the weather gods and is running into spring),
even the sunniest optimist is a little edgy. In my case, by March, the
only safe question to ask me is, "Would you like some more Jim Beam
to go with that cheesecake?"
By about April 1st, if there's still snow on the ground, I find myself
throwing snowballs at the snow and shrieking, "I am NOT a bipolar
bear" at the gray sky. It doesn't help, but it gets me some exercise to
counteract the fifteen pounds I gain from December to March. It's not
so much that Maine winters are snowier or colder than winters
elsewhere. It's just that they go on for way too long.
The first snowfall is beautiful and we all ooh and ahh at the trees
covered in snow that glistens like diamonds in the sun. By February,
the trees just look stupid covered in snow. The evergreens look like
dunce caps and the hardwoods look like firewood piled vertically
instead of horizontally. And speaking of firewood, if the price of oil
goes up any further, we'll be burning our furniture in fifty gallon
drums to heat the house.
We do have a pellet stove, which we cleverly bought two years ago
when pellets were $4.99/bag and plentiful. Now, they're $6.99/bag if
you can find them and getting scarcer. So we go from pellet store to
pellet store, like beggars cadging alms. I feel like Oliver Twist holding
out his bowl at the orphanage and asking for more, and I get about the
same result.
I've even thought of trying to chop down some of our trees and turn
them into pellets, but I'm having a leeetle trouble with the part where
you apply massive amounts of pressure and steam to the pellets to
create the resin that holds them together. I have a feeling the two quart
kettle and pressure cooker just aren't gonna make it.
We could go solar, except that it costs so much that it'd take about 25
years to recoup our costs, and I'm not sure I can live through 25 more
Maine winters. Not to mention that if I did survive to get it, it'd just go
to pay for the health care I'd need after making it to 81 yrs old in
Maine. Of course when the geek retires, we could do what so many
other Mainers do and head south for the winter.
But what with global warming, and rising ocean levels, we figure that
we might be able to just move to Southern VT or NH year-round, or
back to RI where we grew up. Although on second thought, there are
worse things than long winters, like RI politics and living in one big
parking lot for the malls that ate a state. Guess I'd better get a bigger
kettle, a bigger pressure cooker and a bigger cheesecake. (They don't
make a bigger bottle of Jim Beam. I checked.)
See " I Love Maine Winters" Part II...
About the author:
Lill Hawkins lives in Maine and writes about family life, home
education and being a WAHM at Hawk Hills Acres Blog. Get the
News From Hawkhill Acres: A mostly humorous look at home
schooling, writing and being a WAHM, whose mantra is "I'm a willow;
I can bend."
by Lill Hawkins
You know winter has gone on too long
when your spouse says "Good morning,
Sweets," and you snap, "Do you have
to be so sarcastic?"
When your son says, "Mom, we're getting low on milk" and you snarl,
"No problem. I'll just shovel the driveway and three or four roads and
whip right on into town and get some."
By the end of a long winter in Maine (and this year's seems to have
gotten an extension from the weather gods and is running into spring),
even the sunniest optimist is a little edgy. In my case, by March, the
only safe question to ask me is, "Would you like some more Jim Beam
to go with that cheesecake?"
By about April 1st, if there's still snow on the ground, I find myself
throwing snowballs at the snow and shrieking, "I am NOT a bipolar
bear" at the gray sky. It doesn't help, but it gets me some exercise to
counteract the fifteen pounds I gain from December to March. It's not
so much that Maine winters are snowier or colder than winters
elsewhere. It's just that they go on for way too long.
The first snowfall is beautiful and we all ooh and ahh at the trees
covered in snow that glistens like diamonds in the sun. By February,
the trees just look stupid covered in snow. The evergreens look like
dunce caps and the hardwoods look like firewood piled vertically
instead of horizontally. And speaking of firewood, if the price of oil
goes up any further, we'll be burning our furniture in fifty gallon
drums to heat the house.
We do have a pellet stove, which we cleverly bought two years ago
when pellets were $4.99/bag and plentiful. Now, they're $6.99/bag if
you can find them and getting scarcer. So we go from pellet store to
pellet store, like beggars cadging alms. I feel like Oliver Twist holding
out his bowl at the orphanage and asking for more, and I get about the
same result.
I've even thought of trying to chop down some of our trees and turn
them into pellets, but I'm having a leeetle trouble with the part where
you apply massive amounts of pressure and steam to the pellets to
create the resin that holds them together. I have a feeling the two quart
kettle and pressure cooker just aren't gonna make it.
We could go solar, except that it costs so much that it'd take about 25
years to recoup our costs, and I'm not sure I can live through 25 more
Maine winters. Not to mention that if I did survive to get it, it'd just go
to pay for the health care I'd need after making it to 81 yrs old in
Maine. Of course when the geek retires, we could do what so many
other Mainers do and head south for the winter.
But what with global warming, and rising ocean levels, we figure that
we might be able to just move to Southern VT or NH year-round, or
back to RI where we grew up. Although on second thought, there are
worse things than long winters, like RI politics and living in one big
parking lot for the malls that ate a state. Guess I'd better get a bigger
kettle, a bigger pressure cooker and a bigger cheesecake. (They don't
make a bigger bottle of Jim Beam. I checked.)
See " I Love Maine Winters" Part II...
About the author:
Lill Hawkins lives in Maine and writes about family life, home
education and being a WAHM at Hawk Hills Acres Blog. Get the
News From Hawkhill Acres: A mostly humorous look at home
schooling, writing and being a WAHM, whose mantra is "I'm a willow;
I can bend."
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