Blog Post #2: The Only Tracks Are My Own

January 26, 2013
1:00 p.m.
27 ℉ (feels like 17 ℉)

View from my living room

Yesterday, the snow starting falling in Pittsburgh around mid-morning and kept coming throughout the day. Today, my Swissvale backyard is draped in a pristine blanket of white. I love looking at the snow. I will gaze out my living room window for a few minutes here and there, just to appreciate the clean, bright frozen precipitation. I look forward to watching snowflakes fall from low gray clouds, especially when the flakes form so large that I imagine I can see their unique crystalline shapes as they float towards the ground. 

Charlie Brown tree

In my house, we call these fat snowflakes "Charlie Brown flakes" after the popular cartoon that comes on around Christmas time. This is how I, as an adult living in the city, enjoy the snow: from inside my house, from inside my imagination. The snow, the cold, the winter in general, is something I try to avoid by staying inside. Jokingly I say I'm hibernating, but really I'm hiding, waiting for spring. In the winter, my sense of home retracts all of its appendages inside its shell of my climate-controlled house. Home and house become synonymous. However, this was not always the case. 

Growing up in central Ohio, we often got snow in the winter. Even more often we got gray, bitter-cold days with no snow to soften the dismal scene. The oppressive landscape of bald tree limbs silhouetted against a lavender sky that refused to change color throughout the shortened day greeted us for days, sometimes weeks at a time. But despite that, I would bundle up in a rainbow of layers of "barn clothes" (clothes that were no longer suited for school or church due to wear and tear, but were machine washable and still fit) and head outside. Whether or not I felt like it had no bearing on my need to go outside. The dogs needed to be let out and the horses needed to be fed, watered, and their stall bedding changed. Everyday. No exceptions. My mom would take the morning shift, I would take the late afternoon / early evening shift. It was hard work, but it was what we signed up for as responsible pet owners in a temperate climate. 

Sometimes, the sliding barn door would be frozen shut and I'd have to shovel out a track so that I could enter the barn. Once inside, before we had purchased heated water buckets for each of the three horses, I'd unhook their water buckets one by one, take them back up to the house to thaw, and trade them out for buckets of hot water I'd filled up inside. Although I was pretty good at carrying a bucket of hot water, occasionally I'd slosh some on my pant-leg or sleeve, which, though uncomfortable, was no reason to go back inside. The barn was always inviting; it always felt like home. The horses were always glad to see me, probably because they knew they were about to be fed, but also because they are social animals and like company. If it wasn't icy outside, I'd take my mare, Goose, out of her stall, remove her blanket, brush her out, tack her up, and we'd go for a ride somewhere on our property. Nothing too strenuous, because I didn't want her to break a sweat if it was around or below freezing. Together, we'd traverse the landscape, stopping to watch the Canada geese on the pond or the Labradors goofing off. When there was snow, I loved finding evidence of different animals by their tracks through the snow: deer, raccoons, cats, geese, dogs. I'd often ride to create elaborate designs in the untouched snow with Goose's hoof prints. Once I'd put her back in her stall and gave some attention to the other two horses, their stalls clean, their hay grates full, and the hot water in their buckets still steaming but cooling quickly, I'd take in a deep breath, feeling comforted by the smell of warm horse and hay and crisp air. I was enjoying "A good job done well" as my mom liked to say.  I'd call the dogs and we'd head back inside. My sense of home was all of this. This whole process gave my home a larger scope and me a purpose within that scope.

It's been almost 14 years since I've live that life. Somewhere along the way, I have lost my sense of home beyond my house. Although this is the case year-round, it's never so obvious as in the coldest days of winter. So, today I am evoking the spirit of my childhood home and going out to my city backyard to stomp around in the snow. My only pets now are two indoor cats, so I'm heading out alone. But I'm going out, no matter what, even if the only tracks out here are my own.  

  

The only tracks are my own

  (I did not find any other tracks in my yard. Apparently, even the squirrels are staying inside their houses. Maybe it's a city thing.)

Blog Post #1: Beyond the Rosebush

January 19, 2013
10:45 a.m.
45 ℉ (feels like 36 ℉)

Today is the first day that I have sat in my backyard by myself. Not just in January, but ever. Normally, my husband, Andre, accompanies me out here to show me the work he's done or just to chat with me while we drink coffee in the morning or eat ice cream in the evening. Even when it's nice outside, this sitting in the backyard happens rarely. Over the next few months, I'm going to change that. This blog is going to document my getting know my own backyard. I want to move from formal handshake (Yes, hello, backyard. So nice to see you again.) to a comforting hug (Ah, yes, this is where I want to be!). I decided to name my blog "Beyond the Rosebush" for two main reasons. The first being that the rosebush is one of the only plants in my backyard (or anywhere, really) that I can identify throughout the year. The second is that the rosebush marks the place in my yard that I rarely venture past. My backyard is narrow and steep. I plan to start at the bottom and work my way up well past the rosebush.

The rosebush

This morning, I found a camping chair in the attic and set it up outside on the patio just out my backdoor. It is surprisingly lovely back here, even though it is mid-January. The temperature is mild today, there are only a few clouds in the blue sky, the sun is off to my right at about 2 o'clock. Its rays are streaming through the overgrown hedges between my backyard and my neighbor's, creating bright spots of light among the shadows on the patio, stairs, and first level of landscaping. Much to my relief, I enjoy it here.

In my mind's eye, my backyard in winter is a series of drab browns and grays. In reality, the pachysandra (one of the few plants back here that I can name) is deep green. The evergreen trees and bushes are staying true to their name. There is even a patch of bright green moss on a stone slab, bright green despite being sprinkled with snow the texture of a snow cone. Even though it has leaves like a deciduous plant, the hedge that lines the bottom right-hand part of the yard is sporting a healthy coat of green leaves.

View from my chair

When the wind picks up I'm reminded it is January. The leaves on the ground and the few still attached to branches tickle each other. A large bunch of decorative grass on the far left of the first terrace reminds me of the fields of winter wheat that grew near my childhood home in Ohio. The bushy tails on the end of the long stalks wave and bob in the breeze. A squirrel pauses to dig at something in the ground at the top of our steps, but quickly darts off up a tree.

I don't see any birds but I hear a chirp every once in a while. The only steady sound is the hum of the parkway not far from my home. Someone's fuzzy bass gets louder then softer as they drive past on the busy road in front of my house. My neighbor's two sets of wind chimes occasionally make noise: the wooden ones knock, the metal ones tinkle. Even with the occasional breeze, there isn't much scent to the air. It's crisp and smells cold like winter.    

Backyard long view