I Have a Feeling...

Who read the "Little House on the Prairie" books? Remember the "Long Winter", where the family is held hostage by the most violent series of blizzards Minnesota had ever known up until that point in the 1890's? Good old Pa knew in his farmer bones that it was going to be a hard winter. He just had a feeling.

I have a feeling, too. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we woke up yesterday morning (that would be September 26th) to clouds, frost on the cars, and a suspicious icy fragrance in the air. Uh oh. Driving to church I thought I saw little things flying in the air, but since it was breezy, assumed it was just junk in the air. It was junk all right; the frozen, flaky kind.

Snow in September is not unheard of in Alaska; on the contrary, most sourdoughs I know were becoming worried that we had had little in the way of any precipitation, much less the white kind. But the way we arrived here was just just a bit drastic. Gorgeous, sunny, 55 degrees of wilderness Indian Summer to dark, windy, and snowy got to me.

Yukon and I chopped a bunch of wood yesterday, filled up the kindling bucket to the top, cleaned out the woodstove, bought new tires for the Expedition, cooked bean soup, switched summer/winter clothes in the closet, and had the insulation man come over to blow more whatcha-call-it into the attic so we don't freeze. I've got a feeling. I tell ya.

All seemed well today when I took some friends over to our beautiful Alaska Botanical Garden for a walk. We are babysitting a friend's little girl for a few days while they go fishing (yes, we still fish, right up to snowfall, mostly for catch-release steelhead and trout).

Such a gorgeous day, but chilly to the point where we had to wear hats and mittens. There's no denying, something's up. One day we're going to wake up to a white world, and I want to be ready. Like Pa Ingalls.