Tiny white lights in the big spruce before our cabin.
I fear we are addicted to snow. Goose down as is pours from the sky. Powder as it piles up on the mountain. We love it. I would guess this comes as no surprise to you.
Of course the snow has its inconveniences as well. One of them is our commute. Getting from the ranch to anywhere in winter is an ordeal. But a minor inconvenience to me, as I’m most content staying home. For anyone else coming and going… it is, well, an interesting challenge.
Bob was coming home last night. Not having phone service here at the ranch, we communicate by text messages. And not having cell phone service with witch to send or receive text messages for at perhaps 30 miles in either direction, we have come up with a system where by the person who went to town (usually not me) sends a final message at the last place the cell phone works, sending a message back home to let the home front (usually me) know they’re on their way. That final stretch of the way home which may take less than hour in summer, takes quite a bit longer in winter. We drive up the snow packed dirt road, pass through the locked gate about 11 miles below the ranch, drive another 5 miles, park the pickup, transfer the groceries, mail, and other supplies (ranging from Christmas presents to building materials) from the pickup to the tub sled, fire up the snowmobile, hook up the tub sled and securely cover the cargo, pile on a new layer of clothes and a helmet, then ride along what is known in the summer as The Reservoir Road, but in the winter is just a single track snowmobile trail on the bluff above the big frozen water.
Of course, it is usually night. Darkness adds to the adventure, the mystery, the feeling of being out in the middle of no where… until you see “The Beacon.” You can see it over two miles away. And why not? The power is free thanks to our solar electric system. And there is no one within those two miles, or many miles beyond that, for that matter, to be bothered by the light.
The Beacon, as we’ve called it for years, is a blue spruce tree outside our cabin to which we hand dug an electric line from the house, and on which we hung a few strings of little white Christmas lights. With our limited solar electricity here, you’ll rarely see these lights on in the summer. But in winter, ah, it is a different story. Our power is abundant. And free. That sun does shine, and our system usually provides only for us! So, I am generous with Christmas lights. And not only during Christmas, but all winter long. I have them strung about in the house, on our tree, around the windows, over the dove cage… and outside, on the Beacon tree.
The tree has grown. Where once I used a ladder to hang the lights, my bull (yes, a bovine bull) walked by that tree one day, wrestled with the branches for some unknown reason apparently fueled by testosterone, ripped off a bunch of branches with his big head, and tangled the lights in his horns. Always wished those lights were shining. If that wouldn’t have been the best photo ever… Well, it was day light and those lights were off, but that spruce tree will never be the same.
Now the tree has grown. Minus a bare section down low where the bull pruned it. This year I hung the lights as Bob raised me in the bucket of the back hoe, far higher than the ladder could reach, and far higher than I would have liked, for that matter.
Our indoor Christmas tree, by the way, is a used, recycled fake tree. Really. Bet that’s not what you’d expect being as we’re surrounded by a forest of beautiful Blue spruce trees. We’ve never been keen on cutting down our own trees. I’d rather plant them around us instead. Last time we cut one down, Forrest was perhaps four years old. I explained that I was “thinning” (and I was!), but upset ensued which is really no surprise coming from a little one raised in the magic of the woods, thus that was the last time. We cut “Christmas branches” for a few years after that, which worked well enough – big boughs from giant fir trees. And then, when my folks were tossing their “old” fake tree, we took it. Thus… a recycled, reused tree. Tacky? Maybe. Green? Definitely! How “green” can you get? Funniest part is, no one notices that it is fake. No one. Not until we tell, and sometimes, well, why bother? After all, it does look like a Blue Spruce… sort of… and it’s about the last thing one would expect to find up here…
Back to the drive home…
So, Bob is coming home last night. Through text messaging, he makes arrangements with Forrest to meet at the parking area around 8 pm. Forrest will help Bob haul in the supplies Bob brought back from town. Forrest heads out in the dark, no moon, just his headlight on the snow, around 7:30. I get dinner cooking and keep the fire going. Around 8:30, I see the two single headlights, shining from over two miles away and approaching fast. One can travel this road much faster over the snow with snowmobile than over pot holes and ruts with a pickup. And traffic is rarely a concern.
Within minutes, I hear the roar of their motors settling right outside the kitchen door. My boys are home.
Bob gives me a kiss and hug, but he’s holding back. There’s something wrong. There’s something in there, inside his jacket. He unzips. Pulls it out. (Please trust me here, this is G-rated…)
A bouquet of flowers. Tucked in his snowmobile suit to make it back with minimal damage from the frigid cold and wind and pounding that the ride home usually brings. Instead, they arrive warm and well, if only slightly “pressed.”
I think this is a first. Six years of marriage. Life is full of surprises. Life is good…
The bouquet on the table, beside the blooming paperwhites and before the blossoms of the bougainvilla. A bountiful world we live in.
