Autumn Winds

Dear Reader

When a hurricane is announced, there is not too much panic among people who have lived here a while; it really takes until the last 48 hours before landfall to get a more precise idea of where the hurricane will make landfall. Even then, not too many people panic because everyone knows the drill, stock up, strap down, and wait. My little brother and sister commented how exciting and fun it was when a hurricane came through. And as a kid it is pretty exciting. You feel like you are in an adventure movie rushing to get prepared for the storm as the wind picks up. And then you usually get to spend a few days at your cousins’ house having a hurricane party. I will admit, I do love the feeling of being outside when a hurricane comes in, it just feels so exhilarating and refreshing. But I do not have the same excitement as my siblings. I am not so worried for our physical wellbeing, but about the pain of having to deal with possible property damage.

When I say I am worried about property damage, I do not mean that in a petty sense of losing material things, but the sore reality of having to trudge through sorting everything out and take care of animals at the same time. When a ranch loses power, it also loses water, and since a ranch goes through a lot of water for animals, losing power means more than losing just a/c (which is also kind of a big deal in Florida). But we do our best to prepare. Before the storm we fill up practically anything that will hold water, make sure that we are stocked up on feed (for humans and animals), and turn out any livestock that we had at the barn out into bigger pastures. We also usually end up digging ditches around the barns to keep them from flooding as much as possible. A lot of times we bring our tack into the house so that if the barn loses the roof, the saddles won’t get ruined.

But the hurricane is a ways off and it actually feels somewhat like fall outside. All of the summer green is fading into a golden green or dark green and there seems to be a golden hour glow throughout the whole day. Fall is my favorite season of the year; I think because we get the cool weather without the harshness of full-blown winter. Sometimes I am sad that in English we do not have names to give children that remind us of specific things in fall like “the sun hitting the golden leaves,” or “Cypress trees changing color in golden light,” or “the peaceful, hopeful breeze of fall.” That’s how I feel anyways. But fall also means a heightened snake activity because they are out looking for water and food before the winter hits. Today we killed a water moccasin that my sister just happened to see in the yard. It was somewhere around four feet long and was as thick as a Coke bottle. It never surprises us when we catch snakes around the house, but it does make us feel uneasy knowing that we could have just stepped on it with no shoes on in the yard. It also helps me to understand why our mom was so cautious with us in the yard when we were really little. I am not super scared of snakes, but this one grossed me out and I told my dad I was going to go inside and blog about it.

Sincerely and Autumnally yours,

The Rancher’s Daughter