Forest of the Plains

It seems like we have had more snow in December than we sometimes get all winter. At one point we required the use of a tractor to clear our driveway to a driveable state. My low-to-the-ground Saturn had quite the adventures dealing with snow drifts scraping its belly.

One day the wind was blowing the snow so hard that there was virtually no visibility. I thought of Laura Ingalls Wilder in The Big Snow. Life on the prairie was so difficult. It’s hard to imagine, let alone understand, the hardships faced by the original settlers of this land.

When we had John’s family over, several people made comments about our driveway that is lower than the fields on either side of it. “I’m glad the ground was frozen today so we could drive on the field instead of the driveway!” was a common refrain. It took a bit before I understood that there was some fondness for the driveway reflected in their comments. One uncle took time to explain: “We like to remind our wives that when we were dating, they meant so much to us that we were willing to risk that driveway in order to take them out!”

Gary Smalley likes to say that we become closer when we experience some adversity together (his example is camping because “something always goes wrong when you camp”). Apparently our driveway in its sorry shape has brought a few people closer! Was that also true for those first settlers, feeling alone and trapped in the blowing snow on the prairie?