Morning Thanks--Baby, it's cold outside

I don't remember it ever happening before out here in the country. It must have. It's minus-12 degrees right now, maybe for the first time this winter (btw, not bad for mid-February). It didn't wake me up--I was already a works in process; and it didn't scare me like it used to in the old house, where I swear it used to happen more often.

Who knows?--maybe old roof beams freeze more quickly than new ones. That's a theory. Anyway, it used to happen more, which prompts old-man glories, the kind that begin with a harrumph and end by making old days-claims that make old farts sound heroic.

But then, who knows?--all that snowbanks-up-to-the-telephone-wires stuff may have some currency--global warning these days, you know.

Anyway, it's weird or strange, even a bit frightening when suddenly something upstairs--we have no upstairs--cracks like a gunshot. Joists aren't really supposed to make noise. There's moisture in 'em, I suppose, and when that moisture freezes, it makes 'em pop, bang, crack.

It's a winter thing, and unless it scares the women and the horses, you just put up with it.

Still. Yucch. Baby, it's cold outside.

Always puts me in mind of the band that used to make camp just up river a ways, where the Floyd twists around from an overall southerly course to flow southeast and then, after a hairpin, straight west. Right there, on the bank where the river turns on a dime, my imagination sets a half-dozen tipis straight out of yesteryear.

About them, I worry, even though they have no joists in the roof and they've been gone since the winter of 1823 or so. But how did they do it? Seriously, how did they make do in this kind of winter--and, given global warning, even far colder winters? 

Like all of us, I suppose, they hunkered down, didn't try to do much but stay under buffalo robes. Chances are, they'd be out west somewhere, if not in the Black Hills, at least in the cottonwoods along the Big Sioux, where the temps would be just as wearying, but at least the wind wouldn't take your face off. You could find a spot at Oak Grove, somewhere off one of those steep river hills. Wouldn't be pleasant exactly, but you wouldn't be in the middle of it.

But this isn't the early 19th century, and right behind me as we speak there's a furnace purring out warm air, not enough to keep the roof from sounding alarm, but far more than we need to stay comfy down here, minus-20 or whatever out there. 

Beneath me is a heated floor, too, a wonder and a blessing. And, when the sun comes up, I'll make coffee, then flick a switch to light the fireplace. Yes, it's gas.

Don't let Minnesotans fool you--there's no great joy in Upper Midwestern winters, and thirty-below really doesn't keep out the riff-raff either. 

I'm not a tinkerer, even less of a handyman. I don't know a thing about our furnace but this salient fact--it's running, thank the Lord. It's running.

Shelter is fundamental, right?--like food and clothing. You got to have it. 

But it's not a given. We got it 24/7 x 365. But this morning especially, when the joists are popping, I'm thankful--really, really thankful.