Independently Speaking By Brent Olson

Winter

I’m ready winter! Give me your best shot!

That’s not true. I’m never really ready for winter. And I would never challenge the weather to do its worst.

Because living where I live, I know just how worst the worst weather can be.

I’m as ready as I can be. Just today I was thinking about how I quit farming to be a writer 20 years ago, and my oldest grandchild is not quite 19, so none of them have seen me in the role that still defines who I am to myself. But one of the benefits of living on what used to be a real farm is that we still have a lot of farm-type equipment. That makes winter a little less of a burden than it would be otherwise. Of course, without the equipment I’d be able to sit in the house and drink coffee until someone moved my snow for me.

So, there’s that.

My usual routine is to start the walk-behind snowblower and let it warm up while I start the Bobcat. By the time I have that machine running, the first one is ready to clear the sidewalks. After the sidewalks are walkable, the hydraulic oil in the Bobcat is warm enough that it will operate, and I do the driveways and the rest of the yard. Next, I shovel off the steps and push the snow off the solar panels. When that’s done I can do the chicken chores, feed the cats, and check on the greenhouse. 

Repeat until April.

It’s not a sure thing the Bobcat will run; its fuel system is a little tricky in cold weather. Plan B is to use the tractor-mounted snowblower, which isn’t ideal, because while the tractor is fairly new, the snowblower attachment itself is almost 50 years old. Plus, it operates by backing up, which means I have to sit in the tractor seat and twist around so I can see behind me. Quite honestly, twisting to look over my shoulder is not the strongest part of my game.

The cats aren’t particularly grateful, but they’re also not much bother. On the other hand, while there’s a heat lamp that keeps the drinking water thawed in the chicken coop, Ricardo the Rooster has been known to start a tussle and bang it around enough to break it.

Men.

It can be a challenge trying to explain to people who live in a more reasonable part of the world how much work it is to just stay alive. For example, our mailbox is about a quarter of a mile away. For seven or eight months of the year, going to get the mail is often the best part of my day. My wife and I take a relaxed stroll down the driveway. Various cats and dogs keep us company, we chat about random things, examine the flowers and crops, and wave at whoever happens to drive by. In contrast, when it gets cold, I put on all the clothes I own and no one comes along. It’s a different experience. If it’s a writing day, I need to start a fire in the wood stove in my office first thing, because I quickly discovered when your desk is just a discarded slab of marble, it takes a while to bring it up to a temperature comfortable enough for leaning.

Things could be a lot worse. Since neither my wife nor I work off the farm anymore, I’m able to do all of this in the daylight, which beats the decades I was out in the dark so we could get to work on time.

As the saying goes, “We don’t have earthquakes, we don’t have hurricanes, we don’t have alligators.” That’s true, and on the bright side, only another four months until spring.

Maybe.

Copyright 2025 Brent Olson