The Minnesota Farm Woman

Many folks who live in warmer climates probably wonder just how we Minnesotans survive the winters, especially winters as cold as this one has been. We do know how to kick into survival mode, that’s for sure. We are preppers to the extreme. We split and stack wood. We fill our propane tanks to the brim, which will soon cost as much as purchasing a small country. At the end of every fall, I prep my car for winter. Unless I happen to be wearing them because of an early snowstorm, I pack my warmest boots in the back seat of my car, along with a heavy duty winter jacket, scarf, hat, and extra gloves. There is also a blanket and lots of those little hand warmer thingies, which I buy every year, but thankfully, have never had to use. I keep buying them, just in case the older ones won’t work. Since I rarely clean out my car, there are probably 27 of them in there right now. I also heard somewhere that one should keep energy-producing food such as chocolate or nuts in the glove compartment in case you are ever stranded. That sounds to me like the perfect excuse to buy a couple of Snickers bars. My drive to work is a fairly long 16 mile trip every day, and since the car is warm, I prefer to wear a lighter coat and keep the warmer one nearby, just in case. Although my friends and family down south think life in northern Minnesota is akin to living in the desolate wilderness and/or frozen tundra, it is far from that. (Except for the frozen part, of course.) The roads are plowed. There are houses along the way. For at least two or three years, there has actually been cell phone reception for the entire drive. On occasions of slippery roads or whiteout conditions, we often see or hear of someone ending up in the ditch. Sometimes cars just give up the ghost in below zero temperatures and end up stalled on the side of the road. This is where the snow angels come in. Snow angels are those people who stop to help, offering assistance or at least a warm place to wait until the tow truck arrives. Some angels may change a tire, winch your car out themselves, or even drive you home if you need a ride. I know someone who recently had a close call and ended up in the ditch. Thankfully, she was not hurt, but just as important, she was warm and had a tow truck on the way. Since it was too cold to wait outside, she sat in her car. People stopped and checked on her again and again. One snow angel, when finding out she was fine and just waiting for a tow, said, “Well then, I will just wait with you until the truck comes. Just in case.” There he was, sitting in his car at the side of the road on a windy afternoon with the wind chill well below zero. I’m sure he had places to be, like in his own living room in front of a warm fire, but instead, he waited it out beside a stranger, just in case. Knock on wood, I’ve never been stuck or in the ditch, but I’m well prepared in case it ever happens. If there are any snow angels around, they won’t have any trouble finding me. I will probably have opened every one of those handwarmer thingies, generating enough heat to cause a gigantic puddle in the snow-drifted ditch and causing a huge plume of steam to arise from the middle of the frozen tundra which is close to the edge of the desolate wilderness. In other words, just down the road a bit from the Bowstring Store. I’ll be the one eating the Snickers bars from the glove compartment before they melt. It would be a shame to let good chocolate go to waste. Thank you to all the snow angels out there. With people like you around, Minnesota is a warmer place indeed.