by Laura Montana

Created on: July 21, 2009   Last Updated: February 10, 2012

Frozen Tales

Newcomers are often seduced by the spring and summer in Wyoming. Gentle breezes blowing through the tall native grasses and wild flowers, pushing white puffs of clouds across pristine and brilliant skies, give little warning of what will follow.

The first few years I looked at the plunging temperatures as a challenge, a thing to endure and triumph over. Proof that I am as tough as the pioneer women who went before me. The weather in Wyoming is erratic; cold can come at any time of the year. I've watched a 4th of July parade wrapped in a blanket while the snow blew down the street with the high school marching band. Each year I gained a story or two and used them shamelessly to impress tourists. Finally, however, the cold won.

Halloween, usually a holiday with harvest themes, found us already knee-deep in snow. I bundled my young children into snow suits, the only visible part of their costumes being their masks with the elastic band stretched over their knit caps. The snow was too deep for small children to walk in, so I pulled them from house to house on a toboggan, lifting my tiny daughter over the drifts to set her in front of each door.

Six years and many experiences later finds us living on a remote ranch 50 miles south of Cody, Wyoming. Each day while my young son naps, I chop enough wood to heat the house until my husband brings in the nighttime supply.

Thirty or forty below zero is common here. When it settles in that low, it can stay for weeks. We dress in many layers. Long thermal underwear, red or blue plaid flannel shirts, sweatshirts, cotton and then wool socks stuffed into felt lined snopaks. I knit neck scarves long enough to cover our faces when ice crystals sparkle in the air and dickies of bulky-weight yarn for my children, extending the front piece to waist length, adding an extra layer of warmth across their chests. Small children can only play outside for ten minutes at a time before they come in and undress next to the wood-burning stove, leaving piles of clothing as big as themselves.

I prefer to hibernate, cooking soups and stews and many kinds of bread, but things happen outside that require a second pair of hands. In February the tank heater in our Dodge pickup burned out. One morning when the mercury has disappeared into the bottom of the thermometer, the old blue Dodge won't start. I still haven't learned how to pop the clutch and get the engine running while being pushed, so I drive the tractor and do the pushing. The

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