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The Things We Do For Winter
Back before the days of hybrid cars, a friend of mine drove
south, beyond even the Twin Cities, below the line surveyed by Charles
Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.
As his car’s tank was being filled (remember “full
service?”), the attendant asked, “What’s that cord hanging out from
under the hood?”
“That’s for winter,” my friend said. “When it gets below freezing,
I plug in the car.”
“Uh-huh,” said the attendant, pausing for a polite moment before adding, “What’s it really for?”
 That poor station attendant just couldn’t fathom living in a place
so cold that your car needed a block heater to keep its fluids fluid.
I get a kick out of this story and am proud to come from a place
like Minnesota, so foreign to the rest of my country. It also makes me
think about how winter is the only one of our six seasons – six
counting “fake spring” followed by “last bitter cold”– for which we
must prepare. Sure you can look at seed catalogs and dream about summer
in mid-February, but that’s for fun. Pre-winter has real chores.
Think about it. Who ever heard of someone chopping through the ice
and putting their boat into the hole in anticipation of summer?
Granted, I know boaters and fishermen would like to do that, but common sense (or a vocal wife) sets them straight.
Before winter, though, you must pull that boat out of the water lest ice wreak havoc with your hull.
This makes sense, but we have other pre-winter rituals that must seem strange to anyone living south of Iowa.
We take plastic sheets and tape them to perfectly good windows, thereby obscuring the view for at least six months.
We cut back our rose bushes à la Morticia Addams and cover them
with what looks like huge upside-down to-go cups. We burlap bag some of
our trees and shrubs (much to the disgust of our deer).
At our house, we drape tarps over all of the lawn furniture that we’ve (okay, that I’ve)
accumulated. The snow changes them into huge misshapen sculptures and
the wind-breaking wayside rest for rabbits (as our puppy gleefully
discovers each spring).
Tip here for newcomers to the North: Put on the tarps before the
first icy blast of snow. Experience tells me that cloaking of the lawn
furniture too late in the season means wrestling a tarp in the stiff
winds of an approaching storm. Oh, and check the snowblower for
gasoline before the first storm blocks the car in the garage, too.
With my maturing years, I’m adding a new category to season
preparation: winterizing your body. In this issue, writer Ann Treacy
asks some local medical experts for a few tips. Their advice seems
simple to implement and doesn’t, luckily, involve even one tarp.
Other stories give great ideas for how to get the most out of short
winter days and long winter nights. Outdoor writer Marty Kovarik
insists that ice fishing is both sane and a nifty way to enjoy the
season. The number of ice fishing enthusiasts and derbies suggests that
he might have a point.
I sought out some top regional wine experts for a more comfortable
pastime … learning how to choose a good wine for everyday dinners.
Their advice transcends the seasons, but winter is a particularly fine
time to sit in front of the fireplace, glass in hand.
Yes, it’s fun to scare people who don’t have our winters with
heroic tales of shoveling our roof so the snow won’t collapse it or of
taking two or more runs before getting up an icy hill. But the truth is
that for us Northlanders, far scarier is the thought of a winter
without snow and ice. With all we do to prepare, it’s like sending out
invitations. A mild winter would be like the guest of honor not showing
up. Better to think snow, and let the party begin.
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