The pickle blizzard

The recent cold snap that roared down from the north like the Four Frigid Horsemen of the Arctic Apocalypse should not have come as a shock. Yet, many of us were surprised.

We had been spoiled by an unusually mild autumn and early winter. Up until Christmas, a person could go about his or her outdoor business without dressing in more layers than a 4-foot-tall wedding cake.

The profound cold that we normally associate with winter stayed away until mid-January. We shouldn’t complain, but we did. It’s in our nature to bellyache about nature.

The blizzard set upon us with cosmic fury. Blowing snow reduced visibility to nearly nothing; as the day wore on, the howling wind caused temperatures to plummet instead of rise. That felt disappointing, as if the sun were failing to do its job.

Wind chills dropped to levels commonly related to such things as dry ice or liquid nitrogen. The mere act of going for a short stroll was akin to courting death.

So of course I went for a short stroll. After bundling up in almost all the clothing that I own, I walked down to the barn to check on the cattle fountain. I was profoundly thankful for the infrastructure that makes liquid water available to our Jersey steers, even when the wind chill is more than 80°F below freezing.

The wind was a dagger, searching for chinks in my armor. Facing into the gale produced an instant frozen-food headache. It’s only 50 yards to the barn, but it felt like a mile.

I later snapped a photo of my weather gizmo, which collects data from a sensor out in our cattle yard. The display said that it was -19°F with the wind blowing from the northwest at 30 mph. This added up to a windchill of -52°. I scrolled through my camera roll and found a similar photo that had been taken six months earlier. The outdoor temperature that July afternoon was 105°F with a heat index of 113°.

In essence, you can fry or freeze if you stand in one place long enough.

My wife and I stayed inside and warm and dry for the rest of the blizzard. We indulged in comfort food, which included cheese soup and fried hamburgers. These yummies were greatly enhanced by our homemade bread-and-butter pickles.

We canned those pickles last summer, when the planet was verdant and our cucumbers were producing like little green Gatling guns. As we sliced the cucumber, I thought about how good they would taste this winter when the world would be a white, frozen wasteland.

And so it came to pass. Enjoying those pickles during the blizzard made me think of balmy sunshine and the aroma of warming soil. Getting pickled last summer was one of the best things we ever did.

In an effort to further combat the winter doldrums, I built a fire in the wood-burning stove that squats in the basement of our house. As I watched the cheery flames flicker in the stove’s glass window, our dog, Bella, plopped down on the floor beside the stove. This seemed much smarter than bundling up and venturing outdoors.

The morning after the blizzard dawned clear and Siberian cold. Our cat, Sparkles, sat in our east-facing bay window, dutifully watching for the sunrise, grateful that she was on this side of the glass. Cats have a sphinx-like air of self-assurance, as if they are privy to secrets we mere humans cannot fathom.  I am not about to question the wisdom of such a creature.

A pair of incandescent sundogs bracketed the sun as it cleared the horizon, Technicolor snippets of rainbow that followed Old Sol as it sailed across the sapphire dome of the sky. Even though sundogs don’t have teeth, I associate them with nips of frostbite.       

Shortly after sunrise, our half-dozen steers sauntered out of the barn and loitered by its south side. Their chestnut hides functioned as solar energy collectors. The steers were a portrait of contentment, calmly chewing their cuds as the sun warmed their ribs. It’s the type of attitude we should all aspire to on long, cold winter days.

I later ventured out to check on the steers. They regarded me curiously, marveling at this strange biped who was wearing so much clothing that it could barely bend its arms or legs. The snow creaked like an old wooden floor beneath the steers’ rock-hard hooves as they sniffed me and tried to see how I tasted.                                

Upon returning to the house, I shook off the cold and said to my wife, “Enough of that! Let’s open another jar of pickles.” 

Jerry’s book, "Dear County Agent Guy," is available at workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.