Bachelor Bess Winter Story

January 6, 1913 / Fort Pierre, South Dakota
To Mrs. M. M. Corey


Had a nice ride out Sunday evening—plenty of [buffalo] robes and a dandy team. though of course it was cold. It was 18 below Sunday morning and it will beat that a long way tomorrow morning. I am at the school house—have a big fire and have moved my desk down by it. It is not only cold but there is an ugly southeast wind that seems to cut clear through. The weather has been clear ever since I got here except Friday which was blustery. And this is the first windy day. I'm not going home till dark—I might as well save that much coal.

Must close—Lovingly yours
Bachelor Bess

Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919 edited by Philip L. Gerber

Winter Gardening

Thursday, January 5

In every gardener, there's also a dream lurking somewhere on the premises, especially during the bitterly cold days of winter deep freeze. The dream of an early spring day that's sunny enough and warm enough to be outside in the garden. Or a dream of the first summer harvest. Or the first ripe tomato. Or the first fresh tomato sauce, redolent with the aroma of fresh cropped basil and minced garlic. And there's nothing like the arrival of the spring gardening catalogues to help the dream along, glowing with the emblems of summer. A ripe tomato (or two or three) prominently in the foreground of almost every cover, like the watercolor still-life of vegetables on the Shepard's Seed catalogue that turned up in the mailbox this afternoon. And not only some glowing red tomatoes, but also a glossy purple eggplant, a cranberry-colored head of radicchio, a bright yellow pepper sitting next to a green pepper turning red at the tops of its shoulder, a couple heads of pale white garlic, a few sprigs of basil, and a big crinkly green leaf of kale, all appetizingly arrayed upon a bright blue-and-yellow-striped tablecloth. As sunny as summer itself.

As sunny as winter, too, at least at the moment. No matter how bad the temperature or the windchill gets in January, the sun seems to shine more brightly now than at any other time of the year. An illusion aided, no doubt, by its low angle in the sky and its reflection on the snow. It shines more regularly too. Five days in a row so far. The color of its reflected light and the texture of the shadows it casts on the snow can change continuously, as I can see from my third-floor perspective. Early this morning at sunrise, it cast a long shadowless orange aura over the backyard. A few hours later, the yard seemed bathed in a piercingly white light, broken only by the sharply defined and very dark shadows of the trees. A few hours later, the shadows began to soften and the light turned faintly yellow. And now, late in the afternoon, the shadows have completely disappeared, the snow is grayish, and soon it will change color again at the fabled blue hour.

No wonder the Scandinavians cherish the sun so much they've developed a special light bulb to compensate for the long periods when they're deprived of sunlight. I first heard about such light bulbs when I was reading the newspaper this morning, and one of them exploded in the table lamp just a few feet from my head, scattering its pale purple shards on the carpet around my feet. A few minutes later, Kate hustled downstairs to see what had happened, and it was then that she explained to me how these light bulbs are meant to "cut down on depression and lift your spirits," because, as one of the ads for them reports, "their bright, glare-free light is the closest thing to natural daylight." Natural daylight, thank God, doesn't explode just a few feet from my head, but it does lift my spirits. Even now, when its glow is barely perceptible in the snow that is so blue, so blue as to be inseparable from the sky.

From Carl Klaus's Weathering Winter: A Gardener's Daybook

Winter Sport

By the time the River's narrows are gorged with grinding, piling ice, it is usually late December or well into January. For weeks the rough, opaque ice has blocked out such sunlight as there is. Submerged aquatic plants in the backwaters are unable to respire and produce oxygen, ice cover has prevented wind from aerating the water, and yet a certain biological demand is being made of the River. Even though all metabolisms have slowed, oxygen is still being used faster than it can be replenished in many areas. The winter fish-kill begins. Gizzard shad are among the first to die; they perish in vast numbers under the ice and are carried downstream through the channel dams and into the open River just beyond. Here, awaiting the dead fish, are bald eagles.

It is no wonder that some people here at the lower end of the Upper Mississippi wonder about the general concern for the eagles. On January 2, 1984, I counted fifty-one eagles perched in the trees below Lock and Dam 26; there were nine in one big cottonwood. Now and then one of the great birds would launch itself out over the open water, seeming to know exactly where to go, snatching a dead fish from the surface and easily competing with those other masters of dead-fish-snatching, the scavenger gulls. The harder the winter and the heavier the River ice, the greater the concentrations of our bald eagles. There are periods when up to two hundred eagles can be seen on the Mississippi and lower Illinois within forty miles of where I'm writing this.

They no longer nest here at Pool 26, and our Eagle's Nest Island is only a place name. But in winter they may be so common that they hardly cause comment. I walked from my house down through Hop Hollow to the River one day, tracking a wayward retriever puppy in several inches of new powder snow. It was fine weather, cold and quiet and perfectly clear, a day of alabaster and long blue tree shadows. There was suddenly another shadow, a moving one, crossing my trail. Then another, and another. I looked up to see eight bald eagles through the treetops just above me. Five were adults marked with white heads and tails and dark bodies; the others were brown-and-white juveniles. They milled silently above the trees from which I had started them, little more than fifty yards away but moving off. It isn't everyday that you'll flush a covey of bald eagles, and I watched slack-jawed while they vanished beyond the blufftop. Then came the chill of realizing that somewhere nearby, maybe even under the roost itself, there was a plump, ingenuous black Lab puppy that a bald eagle could see in that white snow with its head tucked under its wing. The pup's registered name, however, was Milo Lucky Streak—and he soon appeared, safe but lonely, gallumphing toward me with happy welcoming noises.


From John Madson's Up on the River: People and Wildlife of the Upper Mississippi

Winter Story

December 31, 1909 Friday—New Year's Eve—Am at Speers again—stove smoked me out.

Got up yesterday morning pulled on my stockings and shoes and ran out and started my fire—it began to smoke—I worked with it as quickly as possible but was soon almost over come with smoke—just grabbed my big coat and rushed out doors—thanked my lucky stars I had no near neighbors as I perched there on a snow drift coughing and choking and trying to lace my shoes—was also thankful it was some what warmer—when the smoke thinned I went in and dressed then tried it again with no better result so packed my suit case straightened up a bit and started for Speers. Was kind of chilly around the edges when I started but soon warmed up to it as a great deal of new snow had fallen and had drifted the track full. Before I was half way here I was ready to drop the suit case and myself in the snow and shuffle off this mortal coil—it surely was fierce. Howard had started for a jag of hay and saw me comming and came after me—took me around by the hay stack—made me tramp hay. Was about all in when I got here.


Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919, edited by Paul Gerber

Prairie Cooks: Holiday Post

At four o'clock Ingeborg calls up the stairway, "Myrrrrtle?" which is the signal for Myrtle to go down and set her Christmas cookies out for Kaffe Tid. We all troop down to the kitchen. Myrtle is a fantastic cookie maker. Her sandbakkels are incredible—each one a perfect fluted cup of flaky pastry. We can't make sandbakkels at our house because we don't have baking tins. Myrtle passes her cookies around to the grown-ups who are having their coffee around the kitchen table. We take our own cookies back upstairs, because we have got to get back to that Uncle Wiggily game. We are rabid for Uncle Wiggily, and none of us has won yet.

Myrtle's Sandbakkels (Butter Tarts)

Fluted tins (3 inches in diameter at the top and 1 inch high) are necessary to make these beautiful, cup-shaped Christmas cookies, which can be served alone, inverted on a plate, or filled with ice cream, whipped cream, lemon filling, or lingonberry preserves. Do not save this recipe for a rainy day: dry weather makes the dough much easier to work with.

1 cup butter

1 cup margarine (or lard or shortening)

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 large beaten egg

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl cream the butter, margarine, and sugar well with the almond extract, add the egg and the flour which has been sifted with the salt, until the flour is just absorbed. The dough will be soft. Flour the hands, divide the dough in half, and form two rolls about 9 x 2 1/2 inches. Wrap well in lightly floured waxed paper and chill at least several hours or overnight.

When dough is firm, slice the rolls in circles to 1/8 inch thick and press into the sandbakkel tins to form shells about 1/16 inch thick, making the bottoms slightly thinner than the sides (the dough will settle in baking). To facilitate forming the shells, if desired, press the dough with another sandbakkel tin the same size which has been dipped in flour.

Arrange the tarts on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart and chill again until firm (15 to 30 minutes) before baking in a 350 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden and slightly brown around the edges. Remove the tins, inverted, to a cooling rack. Cool until tins can be handled, then twirl in the hands and press in gently with the fingertips until tarts loosen, then invert carefully on the rack. Let the tarts cool completely before storing in airtight tins. Makes about 40 3-inch sandbakkels.

Carrie Young and Felicia Young, Prairie Cooks

Tree of the Week

White Spruce, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Leaves linear, four-sided, evergreen, 1/3 to 3/4 inch long, green or light blue-green, with woody, peglike bases that remain on the twig when the green portions fall, spirally arranged and extending from the twig in several directions. Twigs gray on new growth. Buds with recurved scales. Cones pendant, 1 to 2 1/2 inches long, their scales dull light brown, rigid, with entire, rounded margins. Bark thin, dark, scaly.

SIMILAR TREES: Norway and blue spruces have larger cones and orangeish twigs. See also firs and Douglas=fir in the discussion of Norway spruce.

IOWA DISTRIBUTION: Planted throughout the state.

Forest and Shade Trees of Iowa (Third Edition), by Peter J. van der Linden and Donald R. Farrar

Winter Story

We had such a nice open winter until after we brought the cattle home. We thought spring was near at hand. They had only a straw stack for food and shelter where they were and we planned on their eating the buffalo grass which was all round our place where it had grown fast after the grasshoppers left. And [there was] a small corn stalk field near to help out. But one night we heard the wind begin to howl in a cold piercing note and J.T. got up to see what was going on. He reported a regular blizzard was starting and we must try to get the cattle in the house or they would drift away and perhaps freeze to death. I hurried to dress and he made me put on his overcoat as he said the wind would blow right through me and I went out into the storm to help him. We opened the south door and drove them to the south side of the house and by considerable running and shouting urging them into the house, all but one stubborn steer. We had him to the door time and again but he always bolted by so as the storm was increasing and we were nearly frozen ourselves we left him go and went back to bed to get warm. I was afraid our carpet partition would not keep them out of our end of the house but J.T. laid on that side of the bed and then they crowded up into the other end of the room and let us go to sleep.

The next day the blizzard was still on and as fuel so scarce J.T. said Willie and I must stay in bed while he rustled a fire and something to eat. So he got a good fire and hot water and coffee. I am quite sure we still had some oatmeal though no milk. Anyway he put a coat around me and I sat up in bed and as the stove was right beside I could reach over and see to things and we had quite a lot of fun out of it. J.T. would dance around to keep warm and sing funny songs and as of course Willie wanted to get up he would take him back to bed. He went out to try to get the wild steer in but it only made him run further from the shelter of the house so he gave it up. There was nothing we could do for the cattle in the house so J.T. soon came back to bed as we could not burn up all the fuel trying to warm the house and we put in the day telling stories and singing songs until it was time for the other meal ("only 2 meals when the man cooks") which was about the same as breakfast and then to bed again and listen to the blizzard.

The next morning it was still cold but the sun shone bright so we turned the cattle [out] as the wind had died out and the snow which had seemed to come for a night and a day so fast and furious had nearly all, as J.T. said, blown into gopher holes or down into Kansas, so the cattle could get their feed all right and even the steer who stayed outdoors, as he had sheltered himself in the lee of the doorway, seemed not the worse for the storm.

A Prairie Populist: The Memoirs of Luna Kellie, edited by Jane Taylor Nelsen