December 2024| Practical Self Reliance

"Real Winters" in Vermont

In casual conversations at the grocery store, we hear it time and time again…. “We haven’t had a real winter in X years.” Each year, it goes up a bit, and the number depends on your age.

Olde timers say the last “real winter” was 30+ years ago, back when storms packed your doorway in with snow, and you couldn’t see out the windows without shoveling. I’ve never seen one of those winters.

The last “real winter” I remember was 10 years ago, the winter I was pregnant with my daughter. I remember shoveling paths through hip-deep snow to feed the pigs, trying to find a way to make the shovel work around my baby’s snug cocoon on the front of my body.

That January, my husband had to travel for work, and it didn’t go above zero the whole time he was gone. Living off the grid and heating solely with wood, I did little else but tote and haul my heat all week and try to fight back the -27-degree temps.

I suspect the responsibility felt even heavier, given my daughter was still inside me, and that weight just couldn’t be put down. At least she was warm.

That was the last time, though.

The last time it got really cold here on the homestead. The last winter with more than a few inches of snow in a go.

The last white Christmas.

We joke that my daughter is our sweet summer child, born just after the last cold winters.

Every year since, we’ve had grass on Christmas. Rain. Ice storms too, sometimes floods, and then more rain.

Our New Year’s Eve snowshoe tradition has been replaced by soccer games, sometimes with ice spikes on, but soccer games nonetheless. Last year, my kids were hoping for yard camping.

In truth, less snow and warmer temperatures actually means a harder winter most years.

Less snow, yes. But more ice.

And when we do get snow, it’s heavy wet snow that sticks to everything, and bends tree branches to the point of breaking, before melting into slush a day or two later.

Two inches of rain, melting off the insulating blanket on the ground, then a freeze that dives deep into the soil, spoiling foundations, freezing pipes, and rutting roads.

Even with -30 degree temps, the frost only drives so deep when there’s 4 feet of snow on the ground. Snow is mostly air, and it’s a great insulator. But with a slick inch of ice on the ground, temps above zero drive deeper.

The ground freezes deeper.

Foundations that were deep enough to handle the “hard winters” of times gone past heave and buckle, as the temperatures swing back and forth above zero.

Pipes freeze. Rivers freeze, then thaw, then dam with ice and spill over onto the land.

Kids learn that those “Frost Heaves” signs on the side of the road are not, in fact, commemorations of places where the famous Robert Frost Lost his lunch. (My dad always told us that.)

They’re instead places where you bust a tie rod and spoil an axle.

So here I am, chipping ice off the path by my front door, and thinking about peaches.

Fresh, sweet, juicy peaches.

We’ve shifted from a cold zone 3/4 all the way up to a zone 5.

And now we can grow Peaches. And Almonds. And Pecans.

Mulberries. Persimmons. Pawpaws. Asian Pears. Rainier Cherries.

And Figs, yes, even Figs.

Peach butter made with Vermont Peaches

Maybe this year will bring snow, and colder temps. That’s ok. Peaches are short-lived trees anyway. Or maybe just more rain (on top of the two inches from yesterday).

We can have a white Christmas, or we can have peaches and ice.

And my sweet summer child is as excited about peaches as she is about snowball fights, so either way, she’s happy.

Until Next Time,

Ashley at PracticalSelfReliance