{"id":90064,"date":"2018-04-20T19:27:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T23:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=90064"},"modified":"2018-04-20T11:51:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T15:51:45","slug":"column-musings-of-a-simple-country-man-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=90064","title":{"rendered":"COLUMN: Musings of a Simple Country Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hobie Morris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April Snow<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunday night\u2014\u201con the road.\u201d It was raining hard in West Winfield and Bridgewater, as well as Brookfield. The ground was bare. A half mile west out of town a thin whiteness began showing up in our truck\u2019s headlights. A mile further, and now starting to climb higher into the hills, the ground was covered with an inch or two of wet snow. In sheltered spots slippery slush glistened on the road\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

A thin coating on the back steps welcomed us home.<\/p>\n

A few sparks remained alive in the cook stove, and in a few minutes a brightly dancing fire was beginning to warm our small living area. Outside snow was falling off the towering Red Pines that closely hover high above our dwelling.<\/p>\n

Winter doesn\u2019t give up easily in Central New York. In the second week of the month large snow patches still mark the bleak landscape.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we Brookfielders feel like Alaskans who talk about their four seasons: \u201cwinter, early winter, late winter, and next winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the thin green flower stems poking up through the (temporary) whiteness are pleasant reminders that this interruption in Spring\u2019s progression is just an unpleasant \u201cblip\u201d in Mother Nature\u2019s preordained cyclical course. Of course in the past these blips have been considerably \u201clarger.\u201d<\/p>\n

April, 1857 was one such time. Two feet of snow fell on April 14. Less than a week later (4\/20) another 24 inches fell. Four feet of snow measured after the second snowfall! Tonight\u2019s \u201cdusting\u201d seems hardly worth mention by comparison. As \u201cold timers\u201d used to say after such Spring time snows: \u201cpoor man\u2019s nitrogen\u2014great for the soil.\u201d Farmers are born optimists.<\/p>\n

I throw a few more pieces of wood on the fire, pet the kitty, and head off to bed. Tomorrow morning this snow may have all been a dream.<\/p>\n

Next morning: it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April Snow Sunday night\u2014\u201con the road.\u201d It was raining hard in West Winfield and Bridgewater, as well as Brookfield. The ground was bare. A half mile west out of town a thin whiteness began showing up in our truck\u2019s headlights. A mile further, and now starting to climb higher into the hills, the ground was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23677,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Morris-head-new.jpg?fit=226%2C287&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-nqE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}