Groundhog Day

According to Punxsutawney Phil and his missing shadow, we’ll have an early spring. I wonder what Phil’s been sniffing down in that den, ‘cause I think his shadow was just too freakin’ cold to show. It’s 11 below on the Row today (wind chill of -33), and we’ve been snowed in for two days. And like the Bill Murray movie, it just keeps happening over and over and over...

This round of snow started last Sunday, then the drifting and brutal cold set in Monday afternoon. By Tuesday morning, our driveway looked like the rolling hills on the Arctic tundra. Tractor Fairy, our neighbor down the road, drove his Monster Cruncher up this morning—a snow-shooting tractor with a toothy chopping drum on the front straight out of a B horror film—and plowed out our driveway. But while Monster Cruncher can get down the road on its tires the size of small wading pools, our wimpy little VW bug and MiniPearl aren’t going anywhere until the county plow scrapes the road. And he doesn’t go by until he’s good & ready. So if it’s windy, too cold, or he has chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes waiting at home, we may as well hunker down.

We lost a peahen somewhere along this winter way, so we’re down to 17. And for the past two days, the flock hasn’t left the loafing shed rafters. This means I’ll be trucking out to the shed today with corn. Word must be getting around about the cat food (the peacock version of Butterfingers) I sometimes toss out on the patio, because rabbits, a feral cat, and a few pheasants have been spooking around the house. The dogs won’t go farther than the bottom of the back porch steps, and our resident cat, Rickie Lee, won’t go out at all. I’m keeping the bird feeders in the yard full, so a raucous gang of bluejays, a bazillion juncos, sparrows, a pair of cardinals, downy and hairy woodpeckers, and one fat black crow have been keeping us company. We have a possum perpetually curled up in the hay trough of the barn. I’m starting to feel like Twisted Cinderella, in that scene where all the little eyelashy, smiley animals gather around her to sing pretty songs, except we’re all mange, broken feathers and pointy teeth, and we’re singing whiny blues.

We have two batches of homemade wine fermenting, Australian Shiraz and German apfelwine made from our own fresh-pressed organic apple juice, and it’s probably a good thing the wine isn’t ready to bottle, or Ray and I would be stuporous, drool running down our chins as we stare at another lousy made-for-TV vampire movie. I’ve knit, oh, maybe a dozen silly hats, and I’ve read two James Burch novels. My arse is now shaped exactly like the seat of my Laz-y-Girl, and my skin is the color and texture of butcher paper. It’s probably a blessing I can’t get to the store to stock up on Doritos.

So if spring doesn’t come soon, you can bet Ray and I will be chopping up fenceposts for firewood, so we can slow-roast a hope-dashing, lying little groundhog…