Last Bit of Winter

Spring has sprung. Or has it. Just kidding. It totally has and I have tiny white lantern snowdrops in my garden to prove it. But this is not a gardening story. Nay, the garden will have to wait. Until what? Well, since you asked I will tell you, but the answer is goofball at best. I would tell you it must be true because I read it in a book and not on the internet, but really it sounds more like Monty Python-penned myth than anything else. I have a slim volume on olde timey gardening lore, which explains the farmer’s foolproof method for telling when it’s planting time. You should probably pronounce time, “tahm”, in your head if this story is going to feel at all legit. And when I say farmers, think men in overalls and straw hats looking like eager background extras in a local cast production of Oklahoma. So, these farmers would wait until nighttime, drop their trousers and sit bare-arsed on the ground. If the ground was cold to the buttocks’ touch, then it wasn’t planting time yet. However, if that very farmer could drop his trousers and sit comfortably upon the warm earth, then, yes, it was time. Makes absolute sense to me. No, I haven’t tried it.

But, never say never—pun intended. I have other fish to fry. Like how I’m going to empty out the 30 gallon garbage can in my garbage hutch that’s filled with water. Seems the hutch lid was left up by a kindly waste management employee and it rained. A lot. Water filled all the way up to the very top then froze. So now it’s too heavy to lift up and out and can’t be tipped over—no room. I will have to lean over and down into the hutch, head first, and bail out the water now that it’s no longer frozen, trying not to lose my balance and fall, head first, into my garbage can like some cartoon. Come to think of it, I should probably have a spotter. At least it didn’t freeze with a bag of garbage encased in ice. That would be something.

Meanwhile, my son said goodbye to the snow the other day, or what was left of the white snow. He knelt down in our yard, patted it and kissed it goodbye. “See ya,” he said, “it was really fun having you around and I liked how you made everything so bright and cool looking. Plus the sledding was awesome.” I said, “Don’t forget the snow days,” and he said, “Oh, right,” and thanked the snow gods for all the luxurious time away from school. Then he picked up a piece and added it to the plastic cup in our freezer of snow left over from two winters ago. It’s melted a few times when the fridge has gone out, but still counts as snow in my book.

My guilty pleasure this spring will consist of seeing how long it takes the gigunda mountains of filthy snow at all the vast parking lots to melt. Will there still be tiny sooty vestiges of our wintry wonderland left at the end of April? Beginning of May? Some of those piles are mountainous and I imagine teen snowboarders in T-shirts sneaking out at night to hop on their boards one more time in the temperate Springtime air. I also love seeing what’s been buried under those piles all winter. Bits of trash, broken shovels, deflated balls, frozen in time like dinosaur fossils trapped in amber. There are only a scant few weekends left of quiet before the leaf blowers resume their aural assault and the garden explodes, begging for attention. I think I’ll spend them wrapping up indoor projects, picking up errant trash off the street, bailing out my garbage can and watching the black snow unceremoniously disappear.

Iditarod Lady

            I joke about Jersey Girls. You know, the scary ones with big hair and “extra Jerz” who talk tough and are always looking for a fight. I wouldn’t want to meet up with one in a dark alley, but I would want one on my team for dodge ball, or, say, if I were competing in the Iditarod, which I am not, nor will I ever, and this is why.

            I met an Iditarod competitor recently at family resort weekend in the Poconos. Besides ice-skating, laser tag and ping-pong, one could take a dog sled ride, so we went, en masse, to meet the Dog Sled Lady. She had twelve dogs harnessed next to a little shed on the edge of a field. She introduced herself as Kim, and couldn’t have been friendlier. We said hello to the dogs—thinner than I would have thought, turns out they’re bread with greyhounds for speed—then she ushered us inside to tell us her story.

            “My dogs are my family,” Kim said and we all nodded in complete agreement. Growing up in Blairstown, NJ, she bread dogs all her life and never gave away a litter. She worked towards running the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race for ten years, raising $50,000. The race began in 1974 originally to celebrate the famous diphtheria serum run in 1925 that saved children’s lives and to bring awareness to a dwindling sled dog culture, which was being replaced by the snowmobile. Though more people have summated Mt. Everest than have competed in the Iditarod, Kim qualified in 2009, becoming the first person from New Jersey to do so. But not the first woman, there have been lots of those.

            The Iditarod—named for the river, ghost town and race checkpoint-- runs 1,100 miles and takes at least 8 days to race from Anchorage to Nome, sometimes a lot longer. Each dog sled team must begin with 16 dogs and finish with at least six. If dogs become ill or injured they are retired by a team of vets waiting to check the dogs at every checkpoint. Team leaders run the dogs 6 hours then rest them 6 hours. While the dogs sleep at checkpoints, the team leaders pick up the supply drops, spread out hay and blankets for the dogs, prepare their meals, build a fire, set up their own tents, cook their food, eat their meals, try to sleep for at least 2-4 hours, then pack up, clean up, harness the dogs, put on all their booties, and continue on their way. In 20 - 40 degree below zero weather—five layers of clothing on the bottom and nine on top. Or was it the other way around? It didn’t matter. She lost me at 20 below.

            I was taking in all of this information—sort of—nodding my head along with my son, nieces, and the rest of my family. My mother was silently and hilariously aghast as Kim spoke. I could tell what she was thinking: “No siree. Not on your life.” I had to agree. It all seemed to make sense in the same way that bungee jumping makes sense to me—not my cup of tea, but I understood why it would be to some. But still, wow. I raised my hand, “So how many people on each team?” I asked. “One,” Kim answered. “Right,” I said, “Okay, one at a time on the sled, got it. But how many people were on your team? You know, sleeping in shifts, following along side in a snowmobile, waiting at checkpoints or whatever?” “Just me,” she said. “It’s a single person race. In fact, if you accept even so much as a hot cup of coffee from any non-official during the race you’re disqualified.”

            “Wait, what?” I thought. You’re what? All alone? For a week and a half until however long it takes to finish? (30 days for some last place finishers). The look on my face gave her clear delight. “I lost 30 pounds in 10 days,” she said with an impish grin. Woa. I realized that the wind seeping in the little cracks on my cheeks between my goggles and facemask alone would have prevented me from even getting out of New Jersey. I would have had to forego my own food to make room for more toe warmers. Then there were the charging moose, avalanches and blizzards to consider. Nope, not me.

            Kim finished up her story as we stood mesmerized. There was a blizzard and one of her dogs caught hypothermia. Faced with the decision to continue the trail, or travel with her dog by helicopter to the vet hospital, she dropped out of the race. Her dog made it. Now she’s saving up again for her next race. We smiled and thanked her, bought her children’s book based on her story, then she led us outside to take us on our rides. The dogs barked as we approached, clearly excited for the chance to run again. Taking turns sitting and standing on the back of the sled, it was a smooth ride without bumps or potholes. Very calm, completely relaxing. I enjoyed it immensely. Then I remembered the blizzards and the 40 below, the standing for 6 hours at a stretch then 2 hours of sleep a night for weeks. The terrifying solitude and concern for injured dogs. I watched the dog’s shadows on the clean white snow ahead of me dance. I looked at the sun through the trees and thought of the incredible sunsets and breathtaking panorama.

            The dogs slowed as we pulled in. It was my mother’s turn for a ride. “Not me,” I thought, “but I may have just met the bravest woman I am ever likely to meet face to face: Kim Darst.” Certainly the bravest from New Jersey.