Chapter 19: brutal cold, schoolwork and the magic flute

It got brutally cold that January. The temperatures dropped well below zero and stayed there. The gale force winds didn't help much, either. The snow drifted the road closed almost as soon as Mark had it plowed out. We gave it up as a bad job and pulled our heads in. I worried about the LP gas tanks lasting the winter. We turned back all the heaters to fifty degrees and went about in jackets. Heating pads made all our beds comfortably warm.

Since the kids were eight years old I'd purchased some home schooling kits and had them doing their lessons at the library table, most days. They didn't bitch too much. They realized that they'd be bored to screaming fits without something to pass the time. I had them do more reading and book reports than the curriculum demanded. It increased their vocabularies and sped up their reading.

I spent a couple of thousand dollars on an old Encyclopedia Britannica, before they split into a macropedia and micropedia, thus confusing damned near every school kid in the western world. I latched onto a 1976 edition for two hundred bucks. It cost 1600 to ship it to us! Man, was that one pissed off UPS driver. I'll bet he thought I was smuggling anvils.

I bought a big Webster's dictionary, the kind that sits on its own pedestal with a half-globe magnifier. The kids were afraid to touch it, so I bought them a collegiate dictionary and left it on the library table.

The kids ate it up. They were reading the encyclopedia for something to do! That was worth the price.

They learned English, math, geography, biology, Spanish and music. I could sing a fair bit so I ran that class.

I asked Julie if she played any instruments. She shyly said "The flute."

Well, hell. I spent a day in Bangor visiting music stores. I found what appeared to be a very nice flute for about 1200 dollars. I bought it, put a ribbon around the case with a bow on it and left it under her pillow.

The next morning I beheld a screaming, jumping Julie that tried to hug me to death. I caught her smiling much more often after that. She'd sold her precious flute to feed her kids while working at that hotel. In my ignorance I'd gotten her a much nicer instrument.

The kids already had a jump on biology. Watching a bitch have puppies tends to do that. They were too young to get started on any anatomy or the Krebs cycle or any of that stuff, but I did teach them veins from arteries while getting some first aid into their heads. They knew what germs were, versus bacteria versus viruses. I asked the local doc to show them what lives in our gut to get them used to the idea of symbiotic organisms. I pointed out that a couple structures in cell biology were likely adopted from external micro-organisms to make our cells more efficient. We dissected a rabbit to figure out what all the goopy bits did.

I got them learning the states and capitals. Addition and subtraction was a breeze. Multiplication was going to take a while. Division was the devils work. Not bad for third grade!

When the weather broke I went into town for card games, fresh fruit, fatty meat for the dogs, vinegar, sugar and cabbage. I made coleslaw by the pound and everybody scarfed it up. It hit the spot in the middle of winter: crunchy, sweet, sour and with the little musty and bitter aftertaste from the ground up celery seed. We played Uno and kings in the corner.

Every time the kids rattled something off at me in Spanish I rattled off something at them in French, thoroughly confusing them. I heard "That's not fair!" a lot. Suck wind, kid.

I kept bugging the kids to keep the bird feeder, squirrel feeder and deer manger filled. The animals really did depend on them. They were habituated to eating there and didn't have the reserves to find food elsewhere. They'd die if the kids screwed off. I let them know it, too.

I baked the fatty meat long enough to start rendering the fat. I added a couple packages of beef ribs and cooked them as well. The dogs feasted until they groaned. They needed the fat meat in the cold. Their kibble just wasn't cutting it.

The kids and I spent a couple of nights sleeping with the dogs. At first it confused 'em, but then they partied. We slept in a big puppy pile and had a fine time. Mom, however, enforced a shower regimen once we got back in the house. After that we visited the calves with half-coffee cans of ground grain and salt. We petted them for a while and went back to the house. Showers again. Winter time on a farm in the winter isn't all drudgery. There's tobogganing and lots more.