Cabin Fever

While I was finishing the denim circle quilt that was way past due for my daughter, Mother Nature was snuggling in her children with another blanket of white fluffy snow. There were deer grazing along the wood line underneath the oak trees, looking for the last of the acorns that had fallen there last fall, when everything had been put to sleep for the winter. This month has been a short but enduring period, the departure of an aunt of 94 years , and the arrival of two babies in our extended family, providing the ebb and flow of life, which as we grow older, realize is the natural way of life. It is this time of year that Cabin Fever comes knocking at my door, and almost crosses the thresh hold, so I must beat a hasty retreat up to the Michigan Border to see the kids. The three hour trip was made longer, by the continuing flurry of snow storms, when I became aware of the new world we were entering. The long rows of one sided pine trees, which had been cut by the electric company to save the wires, bordering unending acres of white empty fields, gave way to forests of hardwoods, and pines, and huge snowdrifts, hardly touched by the fingers of time.....and then we began to notice , hints of alien beings, darting back and forth, thru and around all the standing trees, over and through the snowbanks, leaving powder puffs of white sifted crystals in their wake. Bright lights coming through tunnels of the lifting gray clouds made me wonder what planet I had unwittingly entered, and then as the fog cleared, I realized I was in the land of "Sleds". Long snow crusted trails led along the highway and then disappeared into the landscape, only to be seen again miles down the road, or crossing the blacktop seeking a retreat on top of a frozen lake. Like charging Buffalo, they came in herds, big, shiny black images, screaming and snorting as they waited impatiently for us to pass so they could fly into the next untamed territory. We pulled into town and parked the car in the driveway, and opened the doors, to the sounds of a bee hive full of very angry bees, careening into the gas station, to fuel the next episode of dreams. Marshmallow like beings got off and stretched their legs, called to their partners and laughed loudly as they strolled into the gas station to pay their dues, and warm up to hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate. This is SNOWMOBILE LAND, where it didn't make a bit of difference if the snow was blinding or the cold was chilling, this is the land of adventure, where adults become children and children become adults , indulging in all that Mother Nature has to offer in her castles of ice and snow..

My daughter loved the quilt, blissfully ignorant of all the mistakes in the making, or the time lapse between her birthday in November to this last week of February, and we conversed in the warmth of the family, and the happenings of their lives oblivious of all the action that was taking place around us.

Later in the day, as we traveled back down the road toward our homestead we were escorted by strings of lights leading the way down the snowy, powdered sugar road for at least 30 miles when all went dark again as they turned off unto destinations unknown, leaving us alone in the with the memories of a very special day.