Plowing Snow in Moonlight

            Full moon hung high in the cold sky. Two am. Bright moonlight reflected from newly fallen snow, golden, soft light that left mystery in dark shadows in pine and fir forest surrounding the house and shop on the Girl Scout ranch we took care of in Northern Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. I ate, slipped into my insulated coveralls, shoveled the front walk clear, walked across the parking area and up a steep hill to the shop through 18 inches of new snow. Fifteen degrees. With the blanket of clouds drifted away toward the plain east of us, the temperature would continue to fall.

            Earlier, before dark, in falling snow, I had mounted the plow blade on the Scouts’ one-ton truck, pulled the truck into the shop, put tire chains on all six wheels. While the last of daylight fled the mountain and snow still fell, I had walked down to the house to eat dinner, to write, to see my family, to play my guitar and sing, to sleep, perchance to dream.

            In moonlight, I shoveled snow clear from the concrete outside the shop door. I didn’t want to pack snow as I backed out, because packed snow is harder to clear.

            I backed the truck out of the shop and left it running in snow while I gathered tools. The engine warmed enough that the truck heater warmed the cab. I peeled insulated coveralls and put them on the passenger’s side in the cab. Bulky clothes made it harder for me to move, and I moved a lot while I plowed, shifting, steering, operating the plow.

            I plowed the parking area in front of the shop first. I backed the truck, turned the blade to shed snow to the right, dropped the blade to the ground, and pushed. Snow shed right and some scattered down the hill straight in front of me at the end of my run. I backed up and did it again. Six times.

            Then the road past the house and down to the lodges and tent sites. Our roads are traffic-packed, red, decomposed granite gravel and dirt. Last spring’s work, when I pulled protruding rocks from the road and smoothed the road with the blade behind the tractor, then with rake and shovel, paid off when I began to plow. Most of the places that jarred the blade, truck, and me because of protruding rocks last winter, I drove the truck fast and smooth this winter and threw more snow farther from the road. Some places, I couldn’t have pulled protruding rocks without uprooting the entire mountain, but I knew where those blade-catching rocks still stuck above the surface of the road, and I worked slowly there.

            The second time down the long straight stretch toward Lone Pine Creek, frozen over in dark shadows of willow bush, I shut the headlights off. Snow covered meadow to my right and to my left. The blade threw snow high and to the right. Flying cascade of snow glowed in moonlight. For a ways, moonlight was enough to plow by. Moonlight. Pine trees. Fir trees. Spruce. Aspen trees, bare of leaves for winter.

            Granite ridges of huge boulders rise behind the big lodge, forest and meadow and much smaller granite ridges by the smaller lodge. Elk had walked through there after most of the snow had fallen. Maybe the herd was headed toward lower ground. I would be if I ate wild-growing grass for my living, headed down to where there’s less snow to paw aside before I could eat.

            I stopped, got out of the truck, and peeled more clothing. I climbed back in, turned the heater down, turned the headlights back on, drove through building shadows, tree shadows, and pushed more snow aside. I plowed the parking area beside the lodge clear of snow, parked the truck and shut it off, climbed out and shoveled the outdoor stairs clear of snow, swept off snow the shovel missed. Somewhere on the ridge above me, a great horned owl called, and from somewhere far off, another owl answered. I shoveled walkways to the downstairs entrances, partly. I felt cold, left my tools, plowed enough to warm myself from the heater, to keep the truck warm, stopped and shoveled more, plowed more.

            Coyotes called from down the creek, probably near the trail to the homestead. The big blue truck clicked metallic sounds, cooling down in 10 degree moonlight. Then I plowed the parking lot below the lodge, more delicate work, because the area has topsoil and grass, and it’s easy to gouge the blade into that and move dirt with the snow.

            The 10th time past our house, I put the truck back in the shop and closed the door behind it. I stood in moonlight a while, holding my coveralls, my sweater, and my drinking water bottle. Four thirty in the morning, and the roads were cleared of snow beneath a clear sky.

            I could go into the house and sleep. Or I could sing and play my guitar, or write. I could eat again. I would probably sit and look out the window at moonlight and forest and snow and wait for the brilliance of the rising sun.