It’s the end of another cycle, the end of the easy seasons. Next up: winter.
The first frost is upon us here at Ranch 61, and it fills me with both dread and melancholy.
During my first couple years here in Central Ohio, in almost every season, in response to almost any kind of weather phenomenon, I heard a similar refrain:
“Welcome to miserable Ohio winters.”
“Get ready for Ohio in March—nothing but mud!”
“Oh these horrible humid summer days in Ohio. Can’t wait ’till winter!”
No matter the time of year, the natives always made it sound agonizing.
Far as I’m concerned, no one has a right to complain about the weather unless they actually work in it. Daily. Work in a barn in February anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, and you know what I mean.
It’s one thing to suffer cold toes on your morning walk from the commuter lot to the train. But it’s quite another to dump, rinse and refill a dozen 40-pound ice-bound water buckets and to wrestle endless frozen-shut gate latches with fingers so cold you can’t feel them, only to later make the morning’s pasture rounds like a lunatic with a hammer, trying to crack the top few inches of ice off all the stock tanks so the animals can drink.
Fall is fine. There are those gorgeous crisp fall days.
An early winter snowstorm can be magical. And of course, the first winter freeze kills the flies.
Most barn folk say they don’t mind skipping winter. But if we somehow successfully did, you know there’d always be some smartass with another one of those familiar local refrains. Something like: “I like the change of seasons.”
… At least until they change again.
—SK
Ranch 61 