I used to record the weather on a wall calendar clipped to a magnet on the fridge. Every day I’d write down the day’s high and low temps, note any precipitation, and record significant weather events, like hard frost, thunderstorms, blizzards, hail, and strong winds. This information would serve me the following year, functioning as an almanac precise to our location in the mountains. At the time, I lived on a farm with my former husband, and weather ruled our lives. Would it be a good day to plant seeds, spray the crops for pests or blight, or harvest fruit and vegetables? Should I water the garden? Weedeat great swaths of land to maintain some control over pathways and hillsides? Would we need to make sure our animals had access to the barn or at least shelter under trees? 

Each season's weather brought urgency. We heated our farmhouse with wood, and I cooked on a wood stove; much of the late summer and fall were a hunt for cured firewood. Days when we stacked wood and split kindling were long and tiring, though the sight of our growing woodpiles eased my worries. A couple of winters, early on, we ran short of wood, and I never wanted to be that cold again.

Winter’s sustained low temperatures brought mornings when I’d have to punch my boot through the ice in the creek to scoop water into a bucket that I’d haul up to the barn. The sheep would press around me, smelling of hay and molasses from the salt block, jostling for position as I poured the creekwater into a metal reservoir so they could drink.

Winter’s short days meant we’d come home from our jobs to a dark, unheated house. I’d quickly start a fire in the stove, and soon became a master at starting fires with barely a stick of kindling or scrap of paper. Sometimes, when I was really tired, no sooner than I got a blaze going, I’d fall asleep on the floor, the warmth allowing me to finally relax after holding tight against the chill.

In the spring, I’d time planting the garden around the last frost date, trying to get hardy vegetables in the ground before they’d bolt in the heat, and delicate ones in after Mother’s Day, when it was usually safe to plant anything. Spring was also the time for deep cleaning. I longed for a clean home, though every aspect of our farm life worked against it. The wet climate brought mold into the uninsulated walls. I’d wipe them down with diluted bleach to kill the mold in the paint and wash off the smoke that had built up from the wood stoves. I’d open up the doors and windows, then break out sponges, towels, and a mop to scrub the cabinets, floors, bathroom tile, and appliances. The house would smell strongly of Pine Sol, though the breeze brought fresh scents of apple blossoms, honeysuckle, roses, and fresh cut grass. 

In the summer, when it was hot, I’d aim to get most of my outside farm work done before noon, then seek shade and lie down on the walkbridge over the creek. I’d also choose mornings to fire up the wood cookstove, before the sun got too high and heated up our tin roof and the rooms below. I’d bake bread and cook grains for the week, using poplar wood, known in the mountains as biscuit wood as it brought a lot of heat quickly. Many afternoons it poured down rain, which cooled the air, and prompted epic naps.

After a while, when our schedules changed,  we took separate cars to work. The commute was an hour’s drive over a mountain or along a twisty road by a river. I became a very skilled driver, steering my Subaru over solid ice, through whiteouts, and in torrential rain, once unable to get home for hours because the creeks rose and flooded the road. During my drives, I had a lot of time to observe the landscape, and the sky. I learned the signs of a weather change: tree leaves turning over because of the increase in humidity that precedes rain, the flurry of bird activity before a snowstorm,  dark clouds clinging heavily together signalling a gully washer, a certain kind of heat or wind that prompts concerns about forest fires and parched soil. I discovered I could sense an electric storm coming because the hair on my arms stood up. I was once struck by lightning when it entered our home through the wood cook stove and arced before hitting my bottom. You could say that in my old life I was very intimate with weather, and understood it well.

Now I live in the city, happily married to my new husband, in a neighborhood I like to call “The Mediterranean of Asheville” because it’s hotter and drier than other parts. The Blue Ridge Parkway and Mountains-to-Sea trail are just a block away. We can see the mountains ringed around us, a physical barrier that keeps some storms from passing through. We have gas heat, which felt miraculous the first year I lived here, and no animals to care for.  If it snows, I don’t have to drive in it, since I work from home. And when it rains, I go out onto the front porch and watch water bounce off the street, sink into the lawn, and the flower beds that happily receive it. During the summer, we use our air conditioner, such a change from the farm, where during the last year my former husband and I lived there, we finally purchased an oscillating fan for $15, after much debate about whether we actually needed it. That fan, which I still own but rarely use, reminds me of a stubbornness about comforts that I hope never to face again. 

I’ve long stopped recording the weather in calendars, and tossed the ones I’d kept for years. Let the almanacs burn, and my body heal. Let the sun be gentle, the rain soft, and the wind light as a breath of air. Let all things flourish. And rest.