Winter around here just about drives me crazy, and by February, I’m long past being 99.99% done. Not to blame anyone, but the problem is the people I live with. Frankly, Colemans are not good indoor people. They fester. They need to be outside stacking hay, chasing cattle or weeding something. When they get stuck inside, they prowl around the house like nervous, hot-wired chickens or, at the other extreme, they lie around on the furniture and floor like sandbags, getting in my way every which way I turn. And for reasons I can’t fathom, watching me work while they vegetate somehow makes my family feel free to criticize the established in-house matriarchy. As dictator, I don’t like it one bit when the peasants get restless and start looking to overthrow my government.
Have you ever noticed the universal truth about kids when they are stuck indoors? They don’t know what to do with themselves, but they don’t want to actually do anything either. They droop around like boneless cats and whine. “Why don’t we ever do anything fun around here?” which, by the way, is absolutely not true. As evidence of all the fun we have on the Coleman farm, there is a very festive hot-wire fence just outside the back door that they had the privilege of putting up just a week or two ago. I’m never much in the mood to hear that they are busy being bored, anyway, while I stand scrubbing dishes at a sink chocked full of all their snacking dishes. I happen to be loaded to the brim with great entertainment ideas for everyone. “Go clean your room. Clean the mud off your boots. Clean out the chicken coop. In fact, clean anything! ANYTHING AT ALL!”
Three months in, cabin fever reaches critical pitch, and life between these old walls gets dicey. The kids, the dogs, the neighbors, the cousins — they all start wrestling around, destroying the furniture, breaking plates and teasing, teasing, teasing each other until someone gets an eye poked out. When they start coming after me, I kick every last one of them outside, more than happy to frostbite their mood a little.
Kicking Dave outside doesn’t work quite as well, though I have tried it. Husbands generally require a more nuanced touch. For this reason, I am absolutely sure February was the month the to-do list was born. David may complain, but when the weather outside is colder than blankety-blank, he needs direction for my own sanity. If I don’t keep him lined out organizing bolts and nails in the garage, he starts trying to improve me, starts messing with my system of doing things. “Michele, let me show you how to vacuum that rug so you make straight lines in the carpet like I do with the tractor.” Some days I have to bite my tongue almost in two to stop myself from snapping, “I’ll get the office organized according to your system when you let me advise you about what to plant this spring.” To be fair, David’s extremely good about doing his part around the house; I just want to be the officer in charge of operations. So, I keep a list at the ready. Change the lightbulbs. Take the ski gear up to the attic. File down your teeth. What he ends up doing is not really the point. Farm solvency, that’s the point. I’ve been around the bend a time or two, and I know when he gets antsy, he will start buying farm equipment and looking at new pickup trucks.
Of course, winter also brings with it the problem of the dogs. Having dogs in winter is very different from having dogs in summer. First off, Dave is a dedicated “the-dogs-stay-outside” type person. He inherited that DNA from his dad, and it’s a dominant gene. On the other hand, our dogs are “the-dogs-should-come-inside” type dogs, and voting-wise, they outnumber Dave two to one. During the summer, the conversation is moot, because the dogs want to be outside anyway, chasing skunks all night, morse-coding bark messages to the dogs three fields over, patrolling the farm perimeter for coyotes and raccoons. But as soon as the weather dips below freezing, they change from warrior dogs to mournful, frozen puppies. To be clear, our dogs are not suffering. Let me repeat, those two Academy Award-winning dramatists do not suffer. Our garage is heated, and they have full access to dog beds, piles of food and cats to terrorize. But the garage is not what they want, of course, any more than our kids are content with the kid’s' menu. They want full indoor access. Molly and Bo are smart con-dogs, though, and they are too crafty to show their hand early in the fall. When the temperature starts to get serious, they beg just to be able to sleep in the laundry room. They lie cowering behind the laundry baskets, as still as canine fossils, hoping Dave doesn’t notice they’ve gained entry. But as the winter progresses, they get bolder, and pretty soon they expect to be indoors all day. By Thanksgiving, they are making scavenging raids into the kitchen, and sneaking snacks from under the table. They have full possession by December, ordering dinner off their own menus, scheduling belly-rub massages and criticizing my fashion choices. By the time February rolls around, however, they are inevitably pushing their luck. They are inside, but they are bored, and they can’t hide it anymore. So, they beg to go out. But if I open the door and they get a feel of the wind chill factor, they decide they aren’t so interested in braving the outdoors after all. So, I decide for them, and out they go, tail first if necessary. Of course, they arrive at the back door five seconds later and paw and scrape at the window till I’m ready to eat nails.
Thank goodness for chores. At least twice a day I have reason to kick everyone human and canine outside, though when the wind is high, I have to pry them out the door with my mamma voice. “Go get those animals fed, straw the corrals, check for calves, and TAKE YOUR TIME!” I know when they get back and unpeel from under six layers of manure and hay and socks and coveralls and boots and gloves, the house will look like Armageddon. I know they are going to eat like half-starved locusts and fill the kitchen sink again with dishes and carnage. And I don’t care. In February, I’ll do just about anything for just a few blissful seconds of freedom away from the people I love the most. Bless their hearts.
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