Snowed in; Reflections on a Different Time

 February, 2011, Superbowl weekend; snowed in and climbing the walls with cabin fever.  My unoccupied mind wanders to another time and place.  At LLELA, a restored original 1850's homestead stands as a reminder of what life was like, as Europeans settled the plains.  Back then, "snowed in" was potentially fatal, and the "cabin fever" really was due to being inside a single room, dirt floor cabin structure...

February, 1850 and the wind and snow blow in through gaps around your windows, shuttered tight and dark.  If the chinking you stuffed between your logs falls out, the walls themselves will become little barrier to the cold.  You pray that your log chimney doesn't catch fire again, forcing you to shove it away from your one room home in order to save what you can.  There you are, alone, in the dark, cold, waiting, wondering if you will simply survive until the spring thaw.  You ration the candles you have made for times only when light is necessary.  Is there enough food and game?  Will wild predators attack in an attempt to feed themselves during these long cold months?  Will unknown hostiles avail themselves of your belongings, or worse..?

Photo Catherine Atkinson

The last time it snowed here in Texas, I stumbled and slipped my way  out and took some shots of the wonderful cabin, sod house, smokehouse, and other scenes at LLELA.  I've added a little sepia tone on some, to enhance the "what if" factor of these, but I assure you, they were all taken at LLELA in this century, with a digital camera no less.  What would we do without television, the Internet, football, grocery stores, cars, even electricity and fresh water?  Could you survive a winter alone in a single room cabin, dirt floor; your ingenuity and imagination all you have to stay sane and alive?

 Although I love these shots of the cabin and homestead area during the snowstorm, to me Owen Richard's wonderful bison shot (below) looks the most like something from a long lost distant place and time.  None-the-less, even this herd of genetically pure bison still exists today at LLELA.  Given the attendance level of our bison tours, and the almost inevitable, "Can we see the buffalo?" from our volunteers, I must dedicate a post to them in the future.  But for now, I'm sticking with cold, bored, and snow...

Photo Owen Richards