car such as a snow brush, shovel, windshield washer fluid, extra cloths like a snowsuit, mitts, headgear, and a set of booster cables long enough and strong enough to boost the vehicle.

The things that usually got left until the first big snow sometimes got piled up with the snow plow. One year I even left the big tractor snow blower too close to a large sand bank. When the first big snow and wind arrived, the snow blower was entirely covered and we didn’t find it till the snow melted the next spring.

On the farm, it is always a scramble to get the crops off and stored, the fall plowing done, the buildings ready for winter, all yards leveled up before the freeze-up, the sand-salt pile in place for winter, anti-freeze checked in all farm machinery, manure storage in adequate degree of emptiness to hold all the winters manure, and everything else that you could think of before that big snow.

My grandfather always parked the sleighs on boards before freeze-up so that the sleigh runners didn’t freeze to the wet ground. My dad never had a good repair shop and he liked to get the tire chains onto the tractor wheels before we needed it some cold, snowy day to clean the yard. The horses never forgot. They were always standing at the horse stable door the evening before a cold snowy night.

We never worried about leaving some grain corn in the field over winter, we just make sure it was a variety that we had very strong stalks. Farmers always have a big set of lined coveralls and snow boots with felt liners ready for winter. We usually got at least one surprise when a tractor wouldn’t start. Then we remembered that was the one that the block heater had burnt out in last spring.

We are quick to complain when the streets are not plowed as quickly as we want but some complain about the noise of a snow plow passing before they got up. Most of us have forgotten about the days when the roads were not snowplowed at all. My dad was one of the first to have a contract to plow our town sidewalks with a wooden plow behind the horses. The town did have a big heavy roller to roll the streets flat when they got too rough.

In the spring when the snow started to melt and the winter roads started to break up some drivers only came out on a very cold day when the horses wouldn’t break through the two or three feet of packed snow on the streets. Did you ever wonder why the entrance to older stores is three or four steps up from the street? That was so when the snow melted in town the water wouldn’t run into the store.

In the valley snow is something to play in and we know how to move it around. Farmers like enough snow to blow around the buildings and bank up the buildings that animals are wintered in.

We hope for and expect a White Christmas and it looks like we’ll get our wish. Let’s also hope that our thousands of snow fighters will get Christmas off to enjoy it with their families.

For last minute Christmas shoppers, remember that gifts that don’t need batteries run forever.

Let’s enjoy old friends this holiday season and make a few new ones too.

Don’t forget the cold milk and homemade cookies for Santa and a flake of green second cut for the reindeer.

Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that

has been in his family for generations.

gladcrest@gmail.com

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