Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1919-04-04
Written Specially For The Bulletin.)

written Specially For The Bulletin.)
l am writing this in surroundings of
mid winter drearness and bleakness.
The calendar may say it is April, but
the world outside looks more like early
February.
Two days and two nights it has
showed; a steady, fine sitting snow,
with, most of the time, a stiff gale
whipping it into swirls and spirals and
small tornadoes, and heaping it in
drifts wherever a drift can chance to
be most in the way.
This morning I had to dig one big
drift away from the back door before
could open it to set out on my morning
chores. In the course of my goings
back and forth among the barns to
care for the cows. horses and hens, l
waded through another which came up
to my arm pits. With pailful of
bran mash for the hens in one hand
and another of dry bran for the cows
in the other, the negotiation of this
particular drift was something of a
stunt for the old man. OF course,
could have carried the pals back, got
my shovel, and channeled a canal
through. But the swirling snow would
have re-tilled it in ten minutes; l was
late as it was and the CRITTERS" were
r
with no worse accident than lot of
snow down my neck inside the collar
Which did no particular harm though
at the time, it seemed to me about the
coolest snow I'd ever associated init
mately with,
But what will make a more lasting
impression is The fact of that drift, up
10 six-footer's shoulders, having
come in April. I've seen SHOWS in April
before. Many times. We call EN-
sugar SHOWS" because they are use
fully effective in starting fresh flow
Of sap from tapped maple trees. They
are usually light-mere squalls, last
ing but short time and melting off
in the next days sun. But this storm
has been no sugar snow It has ap-
preached nearer the proportions of a
blizzard than any l have experienced
since that famous March of 1888.
For three days we have been. but fol
our telephone wire, isolated as COM
pletely rs if in the heart of a track
less wilderness. During that time not
q vehicle nor a pedestrian has passed
the road, though it is one of the mos
used in town, ordinarily. and is The
link between two villages. Not ever
the mail carrier has dared venture it
In sheltered stretches where the wine
vas weak and the snow fell naturally
4 lies fifteen or eighteen inches deep
At other places the roadway is block
ed ~ drifts from four to eight fee
deep. Less than week ago the roaC
commissioner scraped this same roaC
aad filed the ruts and rounded it
-Four days il was being used by auto
mobiles as freely as in mid summer
This morning il lies before my window
an unbrokon eXpanse of drifted snow
impossible even to teams till ploweC
out
In tho old days, when oxen were tht
farm favorites. each farmer would havt
chained a pillow to one rave of his wood.
shod sled, and the oxen would hav,
wallowed with il through almost any
thing in the way of drifts till he me
his next ncighhor doing the sam
thing. Now that oxen have disappear
peared from tho farms we arc all of Il
afraid to put calk- shod horses int
such drifts. So we have to wait til
the road commissioner can get aroun,
10 us. With over ninety miles to at
tend TO he can't get everywhere in on
day lie may get to us tomorrow, ant
he may not till next day or even tn
day after.
In the meantime, the sky is heavil
overcast and, on the mountain ridge
which wall in our particular valley
more snow is slowly beginning to fal
Usually. when that happens, it ism
long before we of the valley get it, toe
Perhaps we are going to have tina