January 2010 River Ranch Diary

This final crushing exit of the old year has bashed past with wind and fog and snow for the past three days and slowed the majority of normal, every day activity to the proverbial snail’s pace. The snow and wind continue putting sizable drifts in the driveway, preventing egress or ingress until the weather system breaks and we have an opportunity to plow ourselves out. Once the wind calms from about a 50-70 mph blizzard to an acceptable 10-15 mph breeze, we can actually see progress in our work. The sun will appear and the temps might climb above 0°F.

Dan and Jill and Jilian’s flights were cancelled. Their trip has been delayed until Monday. And even then the driveway probably won’t be open; so we will find a cross-country route for a pickup truck. That done—the plowed roads to town will be a relief, the howl of tires on the gravel and eventually their whine on asphalt. The ease of access becomes a comforting gesture, a breathing exercise, once again expanding the body’s center. The world will open again as we venture outward and begin attending to the requirements of the ranch in the veil and cold of winter.

None of this is new to us even though every time it happens, it takes us by surprise. In the middle of this week, Christmas Eve Day displayed itself with beauty and grace, sunshine and relative calm. That evening brought all six of us to dinner and a small exchange of gifts. Later, the wind gathered strength bringing its drift/gift of snow. Though in the morning the driveway remained open the flights were cancelled and the hopeful, itinerant fliers returned home to become snowbound for the next two days. They are out now and gone to a foreshortened winter vacation.

Now the ranch, not blanketed in white but rather patchwork quilted with drifts, extends under clearing and brightening. The landscape is almost beckoning and from my window this morning I see deer near the edges of some cottonwood trees in the valley. A small flock of starlings line up evenly spaced on a wire and then fly to another feeding area. A Bald Eagle stands perched in one of the trees near the river, and two buffalo, a cow and her yearling calf, drift toward the river crossing.

In a couple of hours I and a neighbor friend, Jacob Rausch, will go out to check on the buffalo herd. We consider it wise not to go alone during these unpredictable winter conditions, and we do not want to risk putting a blot on anybody’s fast approaching 2010 Happy New Year.