[RC] re: fall and winter and bugs - Cindy Stafford
REading everyone's opinions about fall and winter makes me smile...
After college I moved from my hometown of St. Louis to Chicago area. I hated the winters at first, whined a lot my first couple. Then, and I don't know when, after grinning and bearing it for a while....i grew to like fall and winter. Fall means the kids go back to school, the neighborhood gets quiet, and the bike trails were much less crowded. I got to see deer in the parks, the dog would be friskier on our walks and it was like we had the forest preserve that we walked in to ourselves.
Winter became an adventure. There was something exciting about a big snowfall and going for my daily walk with the dog in it - watching her bound over the snow, snuffling thru it looking for critters, the crisp feel of the air, bundling up in multiple scarves and mittens and hats :). Or hunkering down during one of the crazy weekends where we'd get a 12 inch snowfall, followed by another 6 inch, then 8 inch and so on...
Of course, this is all from the perspective of a suburbanite that didn't have to worry about feeding horses, chipping ice out of troughs and getting water out of frozen pipes. lol
And like normanjudyv, I hate the bugs of summer, so when winter comes, I just think of how many bugs are being wiped out by the cold. On our home trails, we have to ride waving a crop in front like Errol Flynn to wipe out the spider webs so you're not getting a face full while you ride :)
It's been a few years since I moved back to St. Louis. I miss the 'real' winters of chicago, but I admit I'm a lot more nostalgic about them when I'm enjoying the mild winters of St. Louis, haha. The winters here are definitely more mild, but you get a lot more riding in. But I'd give up our ice storms in a heartbeat for a good snowstorm.
