Friday Focus
A lesson from the Wilder Family
The Long, Drawn Out, No Good, Too Long, Super Extended, Ultra Frustrating winter that's really not so bad once you get to know it!
Last summer I read The Long Winter to my kids. It is the sixth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's series and one of the best of the entire series, in my opinion. It is a story about starvation, a crippled town, and unrelenting blizzards that started in October. Sound familiar? I vaguely recall an anecdote from the book where Pa was listening to a warning from a local about the hard winters that appear every 21 years in South Dakota. Lucky for them, Pa frantically moved them off the claim shanty and into De Smet just before the first major blizzard and potentially saved the family from death. By the way, it is filled with drama, too!
When it comes to winter, I am generally an upbeat person. I enjoy the cold, crisp air, the quietness of a snowfall, and meandering through the fresh snow leaving behind only my tracks. There are a lot of reasons to be upbeat about our winters! We have groceries that get to us, we have huge machines that move endless piles of snow, we have the ability to forecast what is coming (ever read The Children's Blizzard?) and, in all honesty, it could be a lot worse. Together we can fight off the winter doldrums that try to sneak up on us this time of year. What do you do to stay motivated this time of year?
Remember, sunshine is around the corner. With spring comes a lot of activity at MMS! :)
Take a look below to see what Mitchell has had to deal with in the winter months before we had the machinery to move the snow, get us the food, and keep our houses at a comfortable 68 all winter long.