Chương 26: Nostalgia and Weather

Day 9 Ebril 18 (Friday) I was greeted by an ominous gray sky when I woke up on my ninth day on Talamh at daylight. It was a little breezy, and didn't look like it would get as warm as it had been recently. The almanac said that the average high for this time of year was actually 70 degrees, so the mid-70s that I'd experienced over the last week were slightly above average. With the clouds outside, it looked to me like it would struggle to make it to 70 today. At the moment it was only 39, which was brisk for sure.

I started the tractor up and then went and used the facilities, a. k. a. the wind-sheltered side of my tractor. I threw on my Carhart jacket and re-covered myself with the woolen blanket while I waited for the tractor to warm up. I was certainly glad I needed the tractor today. Once everything was up to temp, I set my speed for fifteen miles per hour on the little thumbwheel attached to the joystick. I pushed the joystick forward, and my tractor moved towards the homestead.

My dad had been a little skeptical of CVT transmissions when they first came out. He was a big fan of the John Deere Powershifts that didn't require you to use a clutch to shift. His beloved 4440 models had them. That's what I grew up using as a teenager, so I liked them well enough. The 8-speed version was a full power shift and never required the clutch. We had a 16-speed one that he liked to use to plow, which required a clutch to shift past certain gears.

I hadn't used it very often though, because my dad liked to plow himself when we were still using those tractors. I mostly used the 8-speed version and disced. Even though air conditioners worked great by the time my dad was plowing regularly, he still always preferred to plow overnight. That was a holdover from my grandfather's era, where you did a lot of the tractor work overnight if you could.

Even the old cabless tractors that just had a canopy covering them got pretty hot since you were basically sitting on top of the transmission and had a big engine right in front of you. The first time I plowed a field on my own overnight was such a great memory. I always remembered the feeling of warmth that radiated into the tractor from below. You could see only what the tractor's lights illuminated. I had felt like I was in my own little warm and cozy world.

My current tractor had like twenty-two lights on it and it felt like it illuminated everything in a quarter mile radius. It was certainly nice, but didn't feel quite so cozy. I would turn the radio or my early MP3 player up loud and listen to music to help me stay awake. Luckily, I never fell asleep while plowing, that would have been disastrous. When I was around seventeen, I fell asleep once while I was discing a field. Well, what I really did was pass out.

I had been out drinking with buddies before I got in the tractor. I hadn't thought it would be a big deal since I walked from the house to the tractor. I figured since I wasn't driving on the road I would be fine. But when I woke, it was because the front tires of my tractor had hit the concrete ditch at the top end of the field. It threw me forward into the steering wheel and bruised my sternum. Luckily, I didn't cause any damage to the tractor.

I still wasn't sure if my dad and grandpa knew I'd been drinking; they certainly knew that I liked to party back then. Hell, they'd practically encouraged it. Behind one of the potato cellars, they set up an area with a fire pit that was concealed from the road. They'd done their fair share of drinking in their youth. So their attitude was that they'd rather my brothers and I, along with our friends, drink where they could semi-monitor us, rather than have any temptation to drink and drive.

That had been the one hard and fast rule my parents enforced; no drinking and driving. We had a heated shop a short walk from the fire pit that had a bunch of couches. They expected us, and anyone with us, to stay the night in the shop if we'd been drinking. I really did have a fun childhood. The last few years had been rough on an emotional level, and no one in the family was exactly the lovey dovey type who was overly emotional. God forbid you try to talk about feelings…

But, they always made sure we had what we needed. My parents and grandparents went to every sporting event or 4H activity any of us ever took part in. We took vacations up to the cabin as a whole family, and everyone spent a lot of time together. Because of that closeness I was completely blindsided by the news that I was being left out of the future of the family farm. My thoughts ended as I pulled up to the fence surrounding the homestead. The cloud cover was so thick, it was practically still dark.

I saw Colin and Emily before my lights illuminated the area thanks to the lamps they carried. Once I pulled up in my tractor, they both snuffed out the wicks on their lamps. Emily showed some surprise at the effectiveness of my lights, but Colin had seen them once already. He remained impressed, but he didn't comment on them. I shut the tractor off for now, then donned my Carhartt and gloves before I got out into the cold, breezy morning.

I let out an involuntary shiver as I walked towards the two of them, I said, "Brrrr!" in an exaggerated tone as I took the water pail from Emily's gloved hands. She smiled at me and then said, "It is a bit on the cold side this morning. I believe the rain will hold until this afternoon, maybe even this evening, but it shall rain a fair amount by evening."

"Really?" I said skeptically, and looked up at the sky.

"Looks like it could start pouring any minute now." She shook her head and picked up both her and Colin's lamps.

"No, the clouds are not dark enough yet. You are new to this area. The Barrier Mountains keep the smaller storms down. That is why when we get storms, they are often strong ones." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. She continued on with her explanation as we walked.

"I am no expert, but a Water Wizard told me he believes the other side of the mountains to be much rainier than this side. The mountains bleed off much of the rain. He said that is also why we have so much prairie land here, and fewer trees. He also said that without the System helping to balance out the weather somehow, this area would be much drier than it is now." I was impressed. I wasn't a weather expert, but I knew the weather of southwest Idaho well because I needed to know it for farming.

The Owyhee Mountains to the west weren't as large as these Barrier Mountains seemed to be, but even they left southwestern Idaho much drier than on the Oregon side. The Cascade mountains farther west, really did a number and made the Oregon coast basically a rainforest, while the western side of Oregon was much drier, and closer to Idaho climate wise.

"Gotcha," was all I said on the subject, still wondering about how the mountains affected both my home, and here now.

"As I said, that is what a Wizard told me," Emily said, her tone defensive. She must have interpreted my answer as being dismissive. I quickly apologized.

"Sorry! I wasn't dismissing what you said, I was just thinking." About how it's crazy the System can help regulate weather! I wonder if it evens out extreme weather all over the world?

"Do you get many big storms coming in from the east, or does the System control that too?" I was also thinking about how the Great Lakes and worn-down Appalachians in my own world meant the East Coast got huge winter storms.

"And what about winter storms?" I continued on.

"I'm sure the almanac could tell me this stuff, but you seem to have some good knowledge." Emily seemed mollified by my statement, and my follow-up questions. It would probably be hard for her to miss that I could be easily distracted.

"Well," she said.

"We have had only two major fall storms. Both were the second year. I was told, by the same Wizard, that it was a backlash from their spell that brought more moisture to us the first year."

"We have fairly mild winters. The average temperature in Ionawr is above freezing during the day, and in the high 20s at night. Last winter's weather was also normal, according to that same Wizard. The longest we had snow on the ground was ten days at the end of Ionawr and beginning of Chwefror."

"Thanks!" I said enthusiastically. Ionawr and Chwefror were January and February by my reckoning.

"That doesn't sound too bad." I was still a little confused about the ritual though, and that didn't seem dangerous to ask about, so I went for it.

"It seems like most people are kept from their full power by the System. How did Wizards enact such a powerful ritual?" She looked at me with pursed lips, which I had seen less often in the last few days. She began to speak, then stopped when she saw Colin approaching us. Colin had finished filling the pigs' water trough, all while I stood holding the pail that held the water for the goats. He took the pail from me since he was a good kid. I helped cover for Emily, so I asked Colin about his thoughts on winter.

"Colin, winter is worse than summer right?"

"Not as long as we have enough wood for the winter! Or coal, I guess." He said the last with a smile, looking towards the coal pile.

"Summers can get pretty hot though. Last summer it got close to 100 degrees for a couple of weeks in Awst. That was rough." With his thoughts given, he took the pail and lugged it towards the goats. I smiled after him.

"Thanks, Colin." He just looked down at the ground and kept moving. Emily smiled and agreed with his assessment.

"Yes, the heat can be much worse than the cold to deal with, especially coming from Albion. It is much warmer here during the summer." I could only imagine. I'd never had to live in a world with no air conditioning. I guess technically I still didn't. My tractor had AC, and supposedly there was magic that could do the job too. Magical ice boxes and a fan would help cool things down quite a bit, but I would be experiencing it this summer for sure.

The small cabins that Emily and Colin lived in, and that I would be building, were designed to keep people alive through the worst of the winter. Their low roofs, small size, and surprisingly good insulation trapped heat. That same design would probably trap heat from cooking, and the environment, during the summer. More than one person, politician and scientist alike, had called air conditioning the most important invention of the 20th century. It allowed people to at least do administration work during the day.

And once it was put in farm equipment, it certainly changed my family's lives. Even if my dad still enjoyed plowing at night, it wasn't necessary. Emily sighed and said, "Alright, I should stop chatting and get breakfast started. It will be more scrapple today, with fish." I had discovered that scrapple was a mixed ball of flour and leftover meat. Usually pork or something, but Colin kept catching fish, and so we had fish in our scrapple.

I'd be lying if I said I loved it, but it kept my belly full, and didn't require me to cook for myself, so I would scarf down my portion of it without complaint. Before she turned to go, she answered my question about the ritual.

"John. There are still people who are very powerful. Far past level 20, probably far far past that point. But, it is usually only those who come from powerful families. Those in power often say it is because they are naturally more talented, or they are blessed by the System. But, there are those who say that it is because those in power have their ways of leveling that they do not show to the rest of us." She frowned and continued.

"Some of those people are capable of doing some truly extraordinary things. But John, please do not speak of that with anyone. It is simply safer not to draw attention to yourself that way. You know that you will already be drawing the attention of some powerful people at the end of the growing season. That will be difficult enough to figure out, you do not need to add to that attention early." I nodded my understanding.

"Sounds good. I'll actually help Colin with the chores. I assume we should let the animals out again?" She nodded in affirmation, then turned and headed towards the cabin with both lanterns. I shivered, then turned towards Colin and started helping with the morning chores. It wasn't warming up, and talking certainly hadn't helped keep me warm. Luckily chores would help solve that issue. I truly enjoyed my mornings on the homestead, even with fish scrapple.

It was a simple life, where my day-to-day actions lacked complications. Most of the time I really could take things one day at a time. I had plenty of worries outside of the homestead, but doing my chores centered me and let me feel a real sense of accomplishment every day..