People always talk about calm before the storm, that rare moment when quietude and stillness prevail. No one ever talks about calm after the storm, that rare moment when quietude and stillness prevail. Maybe this is because calm after the storm is calm before the storm. Look out everyone – another storm is on the way. Yep, she’s gonna hit the fan. This is because change is a constant. Literal and figurative storms always follow one another.

Pete just yelled up to me “another two feet of snow for Boston.” When I hear such things, my imagination always goes into overdrive. It’s like the right brain

keeps working, even though the hours are long and the pay is non-existent. For instance, Pete’s statement brought to mind the beginnings of two stories. A couple meets in a coffee shop, falls in love, and ends up spending the time during a major snowstorm between the sheets. In the other, the storm rolls in. The impoverished family can’t afford heating fuel, so the mother turns on the electric oven and tells the two children to sit on a chair and stick their feet in it. She knows that she won’t have enough money to pay the electric bill, but as she tells herself, this is an instance of living for the moment.

This past weekend was probably a tough one for many in our area. I only talked to one person about it – the roof on Dick Stoffel’s hay shed blew away. Pete and I weathered the wind storm just fine. Saturday was windy and chilly. Sunday, yesterday, was windy and downright cold. It was that wind chill thing. Yesterday Pete chose to do his school work by the woodstove – he alternated reading student paper and shoving wood into the fuel box. I put the dog bed next to the stove and Jenna and Ryder alternated lying on it. Rainbow stayed put in her den, under the kitchen shelf.

We’d been having a problem with Ryder jumping up on us during meals – we had some success in getting her to lie on her mat. What she wanted was what she finally got – a soft spot by the woodstove, next to us. Dog trains humans. It’s tough for us all because there is a vast communicative gap. I still think that my border collie is smarter than your honor student.

I worked upstairs most of the day. Heat rises, so I was comfortable. I did quite a bit of work, worked on Twice Lessons Learned, looked up publication sources for If Wishes were Horses, and worked on my TTeam bibliography. I also wrote an uplifting (har har) dispatch about the three dogs conversing. And in the evening, we watched a video about the Great Divide Bicycle Race. Then I read a bit before going to sleep.

Today is (again) business as usual. Calm after/calm before the storm. Without winds it seems positively balmy. Pete and I are going to make our second agility video. I’ll get the rest of the animals out afterwards.

The sun’s now setting at a reasonable hour, around 6 p.m. So my feelings of being claustrophobic have dissipated. I still feel it around 7:30 p.m., but it’s not as bad – I was previously feeling this way around 5 p.m. Next year I’d like to go someplace warm for a bit. Just how difficult can this be?

Don’t know yet if I’m going to Rohn to be an Iditarod volunteer. Will be cold. I’ll have to sleep in a wall tent. Huh. Won’t be much different than sleeping here. This gives me reason to pause. Calm before the storm. Gotta embrace change. Yes, this is what I need to do.

Next: 41.2/10/15: The Dog Posse