It started snowing early this morning, the kind of damp, wet snow that doesn’t stick to warm asphalt, thus keeping the roads safe, but covers the trees and ground and patio furniture. This is truly a divine gift a mere three weeks away from Christmas. We’ve all been throwing out ideas about what we might want for as gifts; my husband arranges for one of his requests to be dropped off at our farm so we can test it out to see if it meets our needs. This would be the Yamaha Rhino ATV side-by-side vehicle. And what better day than a snowy Saturday! Wearing enough clothes to insure warmth; leggings, sweat pants, turtleneck, tee shirt, hooded sweatshirt, toboggan, scarf, gloves and a long wool coat, I still need a blanket over my legs and a cup of steaming coffee to sip from in order to ward off the chill. This is NC and just last week we flirted with highs near seventy. This is a big temperature change! But riding along dirt roads and paths through the forest was like being a kid again and excitement filled my veins as we sang carols and bounced along, giant flakes of snow landing defiantly on my cheek or eye as it rode into the vehicle on a puff of wind. It handles beautifully and I can tell he wants it. So, after turning the rhino over to our twenty-one year old son, I pour over savings accounts and debts soon to come due. Can we afford this little machine?”Look”, my husband says,”it has a dump bed. We can haul mulch around the yard in it.” Would that be the invisible mulch I’ve pleaded and begged for. The same mulch we have to order by the tractor trailer load because my husband cannot abide mulch of varying colors and textures. Therefore, we have no mulch this year and if I had to use that little dump bed as the means of hauling it from bed to bed, it would take the rest of my working life to move a trailor load. “It will save us on gas,” he assures me, ” as I can drive it around the farm instead of the old gas guzzling Chevy truck.” Well, he might have a point there. But I think he mostly enjoys riding it through the snowy pines and around the icy pond. If the finances work out, I suppose I’ll be in need of a really large bow!
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