Cold Snap

In cold weather this old house is very vocal with creaks and moans and the scrabble of little feet with claws somewhere in the walls or on the roof. I feel sure I share habitation with a variety of wild things—mice, squirrels, possibly a snake. Insects, certainly. I wasn’t surprised to find a sleeping wasp under a box of Kleenex the other day.

Our long Texas summers crowd us with thick vegetation that’s present for most of the year. The big surprise of cold weather is the immediate widening of our horizon.

Suddenly we see our rolling pastures full size, long vistas of gold and beige, dotted with cattle of many colors. From a spot on Fuchs Road, coming in our direction, I can see all the way to the Fayette power plant, twenty-five miles distant, and sharply delineated in the clear polar air.

When you see a stand of cedars in that air, their outline looks almost artificially enhanced. That’s on a day of pale blue sky where the light sharpens itself as afternoon progresses. Shadows blacken the bottle ends of round hay bales. The sloping light silvers the back side of fence posts and reveals every gap between clumps of ruddy dormant grass.

In the still air a hawk makes its slow silken glide across a pasture frosted in KR bluestem. Nearby, wheels of cows like spokes cluster around bales of hay.

The light can pierce you when you turn into it, blind you, a good thing to remember on the road. Today the sky is a puffy gray, suggesting snow. Better snow than ice.

This weather can make you think of why you came to the country, or came back if this is where you originated.

We chose this old house in 1985 when there was no air conditioning or central heat to interfere with our enjoyment of nature. Then, the coyotes sang us to sleep if the crickets and frogs, over a long summer, hadn’t already managed to do that.

When a freeze was predicted we shut off the water. We drained every pipe. For heat, we had a pot-bellied stove we would sit in front of in our heavy coats, watching the curtain at the north window puff and ripple in the wind.

The woods around us were dense with understory, then, habitat for a variety of wild things. We dug a stock tank, enjoyed by herons and catfish and turtles. Also our dogs.

These were among the reasons we loved it, and I love it still, although so much has changed.

We got older. Our open porches became too hot in summer, even with fans. We enclosed them, acquired central heat and air. We shut ourselves away from the wild sounds and the climate changing around us.

The understory diminished. The wildlife decreased in number. Drouth came, and came again.Atornado blew through down the road.

There were wildfires, and we began to think about water. Groundwater.

We began to think in terms of toilets.And dishwashers, washing machines, pools. All those thirsty appendages desired for the houses of city people running toward simplicity.

City people continue to come wanting those simple choices, a slower pace, less congestion, cleaner air. Wanting that small town friendliness. Wanting ease.

But bringing clutter and complexity and traffic with them as we did.

Hale made it sound so appealing, and it was.

Readers can contact Hale at bfhale2017@gmail.com Her new book, This Familiar Heart: An Improbable Love Story, is available at The Fayette County Record office and bookstores, on and offline, everywhere.