Salad & Potatoes
Warm sun makes me want to
sing like a songbird.
Snow makes me want to
eat & sleep like a bear.
On Tuesday this past week, it was 76-degrees F (24 C) with full sun and clear blue skies. On Wednesday it rained literally all day and we collected a total of .71 inches in our rain gauge. We were blanketed in gray clouds and the temperature topped out at 40 (4 C). On Thursday we received a fair amount of snow. In other words, it’s springtime in Montana.
I reckon we had around an inch of snow or so when we woke up yesterday morning. When I went out to move the solar panels into their first position of the day, in case the sun came out from behind the clouds, I grabbed the broom to sweep them off and wished I hadn’t put my snow boots away in the shipping container out in the parking meadow.
Somehow, despite being 46 years old and knowing full well how things work, I still find it curious that when the temps outside are higher I want salad and fruit and when they’re lower I want potatoes, pasta & bread. This past week my body was confused. On Tuesday it said: salad! Come Wednesday it said: potatoes! And then when the snow came my body said: eat all the food then go back into hibernation mode!
Thankfully, I have not yet tired of reflecting on all of the things that make, shape, and create us. Actually, were I to stop finding it fascinating to delve deeper into the heart of such things, I would consider it a degradation of spirit.
Temperature & weather prompts & promotes different activities, different food preferences & cravings, different moods. The people we spend time with up close and in close proximity impact & affect what we think, what we say, how we feel & what we do. The environment around us and our cultural surroundings shape & make who we are. What we watch, read & do for a living creates the lens through which we see ourselves, others & the world. Our ancestors, parents, caregivers, teachers, family & friends mold us into being. Everything that we experience in the course of a day influences us to change, whether a little tiny bit or a lot. It’s really quite something being human!
Today is Saturday and the snow that fell on Thursday is now mostly all gone at the elevation Empty Mountain hangs out in, which clocks in at around 3,200 feet. Yesterday, when I went to our closest small town a 10-minute interstate drive away, despite still having an inch of snow at our place, there was no snow to be seen just 2 miles down our road by the river, which sits around 2,800 feet. One of my stops in town was the post office and the woman at the counter told me how she had 5 inches of snow on her car when she drove to town that morning. She lives at 3,600 feet. I love living in a place with such dynamic differences in weather, temperature, elevation, and climate. I feel like it’s good practice for life and it’s many helpful & beneficial lessons to learn.
