There are winter photographs that make northern New Hampshire look like a postcard. Snow on the evergreens. A red building tucked into the trees. The soft light at the end of a cold afternoon.
And then there’s this photograph of our yard, which looked like somebody had decided to turn the entire place into a skating rink.
How we got there
We had freezing rain and melting snow, followed by those maddening stretches of warmer days and colder nights. Water spread across the yard, refroze, softened, and refroze again. Before long, the area around the building was a big sheet of ice.
If you live in the North Country, you know the routine. A mild day isn’t necessarily a break from winter. Sometimes it’s just winter setting up its next practical joke.
Ice changes the ordinary work of a property. Walking across the yard requires attention. Carrying things takes longer. You can’t assume a surface that was safe in the morning will still be safe that evening. We had to be sensible about where we walked and how we handled chores.
Not every farm photo is pretty
I want the Farm Journal to show the real place, not just the tidy shelves of the stand or the eggs arranged in a basket. A homestead has projects you didn’t plan for, weather you can’t control, and days when even getting from one building to the next takes more thought than usual.
That’s not a complaint so much as a fact of living here.
For anyone facing the same mess: untreated ice is no place to rush. Keep people and animals off slick areas where you can, use appropriate traction material on walking routes, and avoid shortcuts on slopes or near moving equipment.
Eventually, the weather changes. The ice retreats. You start thinking about spring. But I suspect that winter’s giant skating rink will remain a family reference point for quite a while.