Snow

View out the back this morning, snow still coming down.

The other day, I posted a picture of a painting that hangs in the north bedroom at our place in New Mexico. It's a picture of a man in an overcoat approaching a log cabin somewhere in the snowy mountain west.

Last night it started snowing lightly here, and right now there may be 3-5 inches on the ground. The storm -- such as it is -- came late. It was expected Saturday night. But that's the way the weather goes around here.

I didn't grow up in snow, so even though I've spent winters in Alaska and Upstate New York (save me from a winter's day in Rochester and/or Syracuse!) I'm still somewhat astonished by the sight of a landscape covered in snow, and just about any snowflake will thrill me. Though I'm getting used to driving in snow and ice -- even drove through blizzard conditions over the Continental Divide -- it's still in the experimental stage.

My New Mexico vehicle is an old Chevy Astro cargo van. Not exactly made for these conditions, but it is surprisingly good in most circumstances, even without snow tires (they're supposedly "hybrids" that work in all conditions -- and they do). Most people around here have Big Ol' Trucks with giant tires. Of course, if you live in the back country, you don't really have much choice. Roads are usually unpaved, they are never plowed, and getting in and out can be a challenge even in good weather. Before settling on this place, we looked at a house outside of Santa Fe that was down a narrow dirt track that crossed a stream, no bridge of course. The house was beautiful, and the setting was breathtaking, but getting to it -- and getting away from it if need be -- was guaranteed to be a trial at all times of the year.

And so it is for lots of places in this Land of Enchantment. As I've said, much of what I and many other Americans take for granted is a struggle for a lot of New Mexicans, sometimes by their choice. For example, unpaved streets are traditional in Santa Fe County and other places in New Mexico, and there is resistance to paving and other such un-green Anglo nonsense. Hardy self-reliance is an integral part of the local culture and social ethic, and yet people do rely on one another.

Tradition means a lot. Despite the fact that we've been coming here for over 20 years and have owned a house here for almost five years, we're still very much neophytes in matters of Tradition. It's unlikely we'll ever become fluent in local Tradition, but you never know.

We've brought a lot of California here, with more to come. That makes us exotics, especially given the fact that most of the Outlanders who move to this section of New Mexico are from Texas -- this area representing for them Freedom from the suffocation of Texas society and culture. While some of the local families have been here for generations, the area was not open for settlement until about 1900 thanks to an ongoing legal dispute between rival (Spanish) families that claimed the land. Ultimately, the court decided it belonged to neither of the disputants and opened it to settlement by all comers. Our place was one of about a dozen that are still standing that were built by the early settlers. Several of them are ruins or nearly so, but most are still inhabited, and that connection with the Old Days is an important consideration around here.

The older we get, the more those Old Days mean to us, too. Any Old Days.