Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow ... (And Don't Stick Your Foot Into A Bear Cave)
I know that a month from now, when I could very well be digging out of my driveway just as I was in the accompanying photo taken last winter, I may have to eat these words, but ... Come on! Where’s all the snow?!
Sheesh! As I write this only a week before the end of the year the temperature is in the 60s here and not much colder farther north, where bare ground extends over trails that should by now be traversed by cross-country skiers.
I’ve been wearing shorts and a T-shirt on my morning runs, and even have plunged into the pond a few times to get ready for the annual New Year’s Day run-swim, which I’ll discuss in greater detail next week.
On these rambles I often encounter my buddy Rick Ely of Stonington poling along on his roller skis.
“I guess I’ll be using these for a while,” he said the other day.
Rick and Todd Brown of Groton Long Point are training for the American Birkebeiner, a 50-kilometer (31-mile) cross-country ski race in Wisconsin that attracts some of the world’s top competitors, and normally would be working out in snow instead of on asphalt. They commiserated the other night and determined they would have to fly either to Canada or Colorado to practice in conditions they’ll encounter at the “Birke,” which consists of several different races that combined attract nearly 10,000 skiers.
Maybe we cold-weather enthusiasts will finally get lucky, but the long-range forecast isn’t encouraging, thanks to El Nino, which is dumping tons of snow out West but leaving us here in the Northeast high, dry and toasty.
Truth be told, it hasn’t been all that bad.
I’ve burned through less than a cord of wood since first lighting the stove on a frosty night in September. I still have more than 10 cords stacked in two sheds, and another four or five cords piled at the bottom of the driveway that need another year to season, so at this rate I won’t have to cut down another tree until the next decade.
With the ground still soft and snowfree I’ve been able to build a few more stone walls, and if I felt really ambitious I could transplant some evergreens now rather than wait until spring.
Sooner or later the temperature will have to drop, and I’m hoping not only for snow but for ice on the pond for skating. A friend from Massachusetts also has an ice boat he’s eager to dust off. Here’s hoping.
As for the Boy Scout leader mauled by a black bear a couple weeks ago after entering a cave in New Jersey, I think I’ll exercise more caution the next time I lower myself into a cavern in North Stonington ominously named Bear Cave. I’ve stepped heedlessly into that crack in the earth at the base of Bullet Ledge on the Narragansett Trail dozens of times, never thinking it might be occupied.
You can’t blame the New Jersey bear for defending his turf, and I’m glad that the Scout leader, though bitten on his leg, neck and face, wasn’t more seriously injured.
Bears aren’t the only critters that hunker down in places where humans occasionally tread.
Over the years I’ve slipped on boots that had been home to wasps, spiders and other living things you’d rather not find in close proximity to your flesh. I’m sure the intrusion must have been equally traumatic for the hapless bug or rodent.
Not long ago I reached into the clothespin bag hanging from our clothesline and a bat fluttered out.
Anyway, watch your step, and think snow.
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