WARM AND COMFY IN MY NEW STUDIO

Portrait Nearing Completion

          The portrait portion of the painting is mostly finished and as you can see in the lower left corner, I've started painting Walter Stockford as he was often seen during one of his many walks.  Kind of reminds me of myself because I've always enjoyed walking and hiking, especially in the wilds.  But not today, our little place is in the midst of a full-blown winter blizzard, visibility at times, only 50'; the wind chill taking your breath away when you step into it.   When I opened the door this morning, the snow had drifted in front of the doorway, the depth past my knees and across the yard, in front of the garage door where I was heading, the snow was over waist deep.  Fortunately, even though the fire went out in my studio during the night and it was icy cold when I went inside, I'd had the foresight to tie the door shut (because of the frost heaves, the door doesn't close tightly) otherwise I probably would have been confronted with a huge snowdrift inside the building.  The studio is once again warm; the fire crackling down below didn't take very long to generate enough heat to make it once again very comfortable, especially as I watch the snow, almost horizontally, fly by the window and listen to the roar of the wind buffeting the building.  I was told that this winter, is the way it used to be approximately ten years earlier; perhaps an omen of global warming.

          I watched a documentary on the taiga (Siberia), which was about three men who lived mostly off the land.  During the summer, when daylight shines approximately 20 hours a day, they were gardeners and during the long winter months they headed into the forests to trap sable in order to earn a little money to purchase necessary items and foods they were unable to grow themselves.  In one scene, one of the men, while checking his traps, said at -30 degrees, it was a mild day.  I felt shivers going up and down my backbone as I watched him reset his trap with bare hands and if that wasn't enough to make me shiver, when he returned home shortly before nightfall, a large tree had fallen down on top of his small shack, which did a fair amount of damage.  I noticed he had a very sharp axe, shaped very much like a tomahawk, which was one of his main tools, and before long, he had soon chopped the tree into sections and pushed them out of the way.  After he had chinked up any holes that had been caused by the falling tree, he soon had a fire going inside his tiny cabin.  He only had a dog for company during the winter and it wasn't allowed inside.  Being a city-dweller most of my life with a central heating system I could adjust by simply turning a knob and usually having someone around almost all of the time, I'm not sure that I'd be able to endure and cope with the harshness of winter or be alone over quite a long period of time - most likely come down with a serious bout of cabin-fever.

          The trees are swaying erratically in the wind and I'm surprised the power is still on; usually a tree would have taken out one of the power lines or a transformer would have overloaded and blown by now.  It's definitely an indoor day and if I didn't have animals and chickens to tend to I would have stayed inside.  The wind must have been blowing through some cracks and small holes under the back part of the house last night because the cold water pipe and the drain are frozen solid again, even though we left the tap dripping.  But it's not really a problem because we still have the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen plumbing, which are working properly - even have hot water, so that's a bonus - I may even have a hot soak in the tub later with a paper novel and a cold beer.  Although Sarah's teenage daughter bitterly complains about everything, I hardly feel that we're "roughing" it.  I can't say that I've ever lived under very harsh circumstances during my life, always been warm, food in my belly and earned enough money for even frivolous and unnecessary items, dinners out, entertainment and vacations; adoration's of the middle classes and higher.

          When I was working hard in the summer, building the interior of the studio and other necessary chores, I could hardly wait until winter arrived so I could take a long break and now that it's here with a vengeance, with still no sight ending, I'm thinking to myself, especially once I start shoveling through the snow drifts, winter could come to a close, at least the freezing part and the snow.  The snow is so heavy at the moment, the ridge has completely disappeared; I can't imagine how the animals that don't hibernate and the birds that don't fly south for the winter exist on days like this.  They must just hunker down in the snow, stand behind some large boulders or tuck themselves into little cozy holes to stay warm and out of the weather; I would think foraging for food on days like this would be right out of the question.

          Well, I've sat here long enough, time to do something else besides writing a blog; should probably chop a little wood from the look of the supply stacked near the wood stove; she's going to be a cold, blowy day - cheers, eh!