Here in the smack dab middle of the country, we are at the mercy of opposing weather systems. At this time of year, near the Vernal Equinox, we never know what we'll get.
Last Friday evening, my daughter and the grandkids encountered a snowburst on the way here for an overnight stay. They reported that the pouch-like dark clouds seemed to unzip and dump snow so thick that they could barely see.
The next day, we had to bundle up to walk down to the river. We sat around the wood stove and knitted before they left to return home to Kansas.
The following day, it was sixty degrees. It was so warm I had to take my sweatshirt off and hang it on the fence and work in my tee shirt. With the ground damp, it seemed a good time to move the compost cage. Mostly just a weed bin, it fills up and has to be started in another spot.
The cage consisted of two metal tee-posts, chain link fence and an old wide chain link gate. Pulling the posts up was easy, as was cutting the wires that held the cage to the fence.
Rebuilding the cage in the new spot required using the post pounder. It was surprising that the pounder had grown much heavier since I used it last summer. There was no explanation for it. It was no longer effortless to hoist it above my head. I'm ashamed to say I had to lay the post over, put the pounder on and then tip it up into position. Call me Weenie Arms.
That night it got down to twenty-four degrees. It was then that I realized these abrupt switches in the weather are actually necessary. We need a few days between spring-like temperatures to get over the sudden exertions that use different muscles.
For wood-cutting, I do a lot of squatting. Sometimes, it's to heft a big chunk of wood, or to cut downed wood. The electric log splitter requires a lot of squatting. By Winter's end, I can spring up reliably from a squat. Then there is pitching wood over to the cart, a two-handed underhand thrust. All winter, there is rarely a need to lift anything above my head.
Who knows, without a few days of recovery, I might tip myself over backwards using the post pounder.
And Now for Something Completely Different
The record temperatures here in the Midwest for any given day in February and March can be anywhere from minus eleven to seventy-five degrees.
Either I'm sitting in the sunshine drinking iced tea or I'm out gathering more kindling because Winter seems determined to never release its grip on the land.
Sometimes it seems as if the whole thing is controlled by a clumsy, unseen hand that is fiddling with our thermostat. It catches us off balance.
I'm off to gather more kindling. A big thunderstorm is coming this afternoon. The good news is the forecast for the day after tomorrow is for the mid-sixties. Unfortunately, two days after that the high will only be forty.
