Spring

Reflections 9

On Spring’s Arrival

You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.

Thoreau

If there is one salient memory which has stayed with me about this particular period in my stay in the cabin it is my growing anxiety over the length of the winter.

The unofficial arrival of spring made me realize just how much I’d been looking forward to the end of what was a long, cold winter. In a single day, my mood changed from one of resignation that winter was never going to end to one of elation that spring had arrived. I’d reached the point where, despite my dislike of the city, a trip to London was looking very inviting just to get away from all of the snow and cold, the same snow and cold, incidentally, which I went there in search of. 

After having gotten over the initial shock of the sudden onset of spring, I had time to consider the fact that I’d made it, reasonably unscathed, through my first winter of roughing it in the bush. It all seemed somewhat anticlimactic thinking back on my concerns of the previous fall when winter was imminent. And, according to my neighbours who’ve been here much longer than I, it was the most severe winter in a decade or more. Only twice did I wake up in the wee hours of the morning to discover that Molly’s water bowl had turned into a potential skating rink for the resident mice. I’m also wondering where the time went. How did I possibly occupy myself through all of those long dark evenings?

I know that I slept a lot, often finding myself in bed by seven o’clock in the evening but then I was usually up by four or five in the morning not to mention extracting myself from the downy warmth of my bed on those bitterly cold nights, having to make the short descent down the ladder into the even colder temperatures at floor level to throw a log or two on the fire, or worse, to rekindle a fire that had completely died out.

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During the daylight hours the main activity was walking and cutting trails. And because I didn’t write in my journal every day, it’s impossible to know exactly how many days we didn’t get out but I don’t think I’d be too far off if I guessed less than a dozen. And of course there were the chores that come with living a back to nature lifestyle where most tasks can no longer be accomplished by the flick of a switch or the turning of a knob...Solar panels and batteries had to be constantly monitored...Would it be candles or low wattage lighting on any given evening.

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The icebox also required constant monitoring - should the door be closed firmly, left just slightly ajar and how much, again all dependent on outdoor temperatures. And water, not being readily available at the twist of a tap, was always on my mind as well. Was the reservoir behind the stove full? How much drinking water was on hand?

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There was also the risk that the truck was susceptible to thieves as it sat just in off the road, seemingly abandoned to passersby. There was at least one instance when I believe someone made an attempt, albeit a feeble one, to make off with the truck. One day around noon, Molly and I were puttering about in the yard around the cabin when she suddenly ran down the drive several metres, stopped dead in her tracks and started barking, very out of character for her. Suspicious, I walked down the drive, if for nothing else than to stop her barking. At the truck I discovered a set of foot prints coming in from the road and stopping at the driver’s door. The snow had been wiped off the window and someone had obviously tried the door handle, but that was it. I can only surmise that Molly’s barking had scared the potential thief off.  Thank you Molly