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Field Notes

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

The Arch

Warm winter winds blowing and blowing and blowing without end. A real snow eater. You can almost imagine spring was coming with the warm days and the melt, though no one in these parts is fooled. This is but a respite from the cold, which will return soon enough. Worth it, so long as more snow comes with it. 

The wind is like a breath of relief after the cold and darkness of December, when everything seemed to huddle in on itself. The days are getting longer now, the weeks when there seemed to be only five hours of daylight in the past. The wind feels a part of that change, though it isn’t. Just more weather, always a fixation in these parts. 

Further west, closer to the mountains, they have these winds every other week to hear them talk. How can you stand the cold out there, they say, with a smug grin. People here respond with a smugness of their own: these weak westerners who don’t have the strength to manage a proper winter. That is the logic of winter in these dominions. Pride that one can endure such privations (and worse if it comes!) and insistence that others elsewhere face much worse, that really this is all not so bad. And it is true, that such winds only intermittently find their way to the Quarter, while the cold northern ones can always find their way in. There are days when you can drive west and watch the snow in the fields go from glistening in the sun, to sagging, to puddles and bare patches.  

The snow melts into tiny rivers, carving pathways down laneways, turning solid overnight as the temperature drops. The next day repeats itself, except the water flows over yesterday’s ice and adds another layer to it. Soon enough the low spots everywhere are treacherous, as are the places where the snow has been packed down by many footsteps, the warmth transforming it from snow to ice, unbreakably hard. Walking becomes a high-risk activity. You learn to go with the ice, to let yourself slip and glide rather than catching yourself. 

Evenings coming home, you pause to look at the sky. A habit. Always good to see what’s coming. To the west there is a curving line of clouds, dark and ominous. A great wall, beyond which the sky is clear and blue. Above the sky is full of scattered clouds, as dark as the western arch. There is no rain or snow in them, just the promise of warm winds. Colder days are further out on the horizon.  

Field Notes

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Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.

Three Days of Rain

The storm front arced across the sky, covering every horizon in a bilious grey. It seemed unmoving and immovable. Everyone looked to the sky in anticipation after a dry winter and a dry and windy spring, dust kicking up everywhere. The forecast called for three days of rain. 100ml. 200 in the foothills and mountains in the west. The rivers would fatten and creeks would run, some for the first time in years. The grass would turn an unfamiliar, vibrant green and the crops would grow. The cattle could stay on the summer grazing until August and there would be hay to cut. All things seemed possible. 

They hurried to get whatever work done they could before the clouds unleashed their bounty and kept them from the fields. It began early in the afternoon with a few passing showers, enough to wet the ground and keep the dust down but little more. Just enough rain to make working miserable, but not enough to stop. There were dark mutterings of another damp fart and little more, of how forecasters were like sorcerers – not to be trusted under any circumstances. Late in the afternoon the wind began to snarl and they understood that the true storm had arrived. The rain began to fall, steady, stinging and fierce. Every rut in the road soon had a puddle and those still out in the fields and pastures had to go slow on slick gravel when they returned home.  

It continued through the night and into the next morning, steady at times, a deluge at others. Everyone slept in and lingered over their coffees. Someone was sent out to look at the rain gauge and phone calls and marvelling texts were exchanged. By and by everyone left their houses. Children were sent to school and wives headed out to their jobs in town. The fastidious and the Christians headed for the shop or quonset, where the drumming of the rain was satisfyingly loud, and used the time granted them to take care of repairs and maintenance to machinery.  

The rest headed to shops and sheds as well, gathering in groups of four or six. A bottle of whisky was unfurled and chairs and overturned five gallon pails were sat upon around a makeshift table of plywood set across two sawhorses. They played cards until the bottle was drained sometime between that evening and the next morning. The rain accompanied them as their wives came to collect them for breakfast, cursing them for fools to do such things at their age, and lulled them through the throes of their hangovers where they swore never to do such things again.  

They wouldn’t – until the next deluge. The next day, late in the morning, the rain ceased as if by general accord. Everyone emerged from their homes, most none the worse for wear, to witness the world transformed.