Wyoming Winter

With winter coming to Wyoming, finally, weather app says we will be below zero by the middle of the week. All this after having one of the longest and best falls in many Wyoming years.

Back Yard this Morning

Saturday afternoon I watched a high school football game in shirtsleeves and the golf course is still green and playable.

I thought I might reflect a bit on winters past and how the original and early settlers made it through the tough, and often starving times.

        Early inhabits were wanderers and found campsites with terrific southern exposer for winter. Some parts of Wyoming are warmer than others, some much warmer. Where I live our deck with southern and eastern exposer warms quickly on most days throughout the winter. Many mornings with a 20s reading on the thermometer I sit and read most comfortably on the deck. That was the key, sunny exposer and a site that block the north and west winds.

Shelters, teepees or lean-tos were erected close to north walls, with a hide covered dirt floor and a most efficient fire pit in the middle. Hides were drawn down tight in the winter and often sealed with dirt from the teepee floor.  

Still not our natural gas or electric furnaces of today but they made it through, somehow. The key to winter in 1800s was preparation, storing away food, lots of blankets and robes and a place with sunshine and water.

Tiny Waterfall May be Ice in a Few Days

As for me I think I like the idea of a warm house and plenty of food for the winter. People of the olden days were much tougher than me.