More Winter

Well, from a high of 56 yesterday around noon, we dropped to 5 degrees (with a wind chill I really don't want to discuss) this morning. We've managed to struggle up to 18 degrees mid-afternoon. But I'm watching a TV show from California's Napa Valley in the summer. It looks wonderful! And since I've been in the Napa Valley in June, the show helps me pull forward memories of the warm weather!

It's always a challenge to get through these winter months with a cheery outlook intact. Hubby and I were discussing just yesterday how slowly the month of January is passing – even though the days still seem like they're flying by! The weather just gets cold and overcast, the holidays are over and suddenly there's nothing going on. And time crawls.

My six winters in the Willamette Valley of Oregon were so different – and somewhat depressing. There is a large market of producing grass seed in the Valley......and this means when fall comes, the fields get burned off to get them ready for the next planting. Some days the smoke in the air was so thick! This usually happened in September. From there we slid into October and the beginning of the winter storms coming in off the Pacific. And the rain would start. The latter half of October and November saw hard rain and winds. Then the moisture would slow to a drip – and the air just dripped constantly through December, January, and February. In March the Pacific storms kicked up again. The temperature would usually stay above freezing, which was the one plus side of the heavy cloud cover.

I learned in Oregon to dread having what they called a “high sky”. If the clouds cleared up and we had blue sky in the winter, that usually meant the temps would plummet below the freezing point and it would be really cold. And that would mean frozen water pipes and occasionally snow or ice. You learned how to appreciate those rain clouds.

The winter son was born, my folks came to Oregon to help me out. Son tended to cry a lot, but it was usually late afternoon and evening (especially if you consider “evening” usually lasted until around 2 am). But one day he was making himself heard during the day. Dad sympathized with him and said the poor little guy was probably scared of whatever that bright yellow ball in the sky might be! I knew then Dad was ready to head back to Missouri and get out of the rain.

I looked so forward to getting back to the Midwest and “normal” winter weather when the move was made from Oregon to central Iowa in 1982. And wouldn't you know, the first winter there it was unseasonably warm and most of the winter consisted of heavy clouds, fog, and drippy rain. I was amazed at how much Iowa felt like Oregon that winter. The next two winters made up for that with plenty of frigid cold and snow.

I know when spring arrives, we'll look back and wonder how winter went by so fast. But until then, we'll keep plodding through the winter weather one day at a time.