Life Between Snowstorms and Pine Needles

Yesterday, I'm raking pine needles not knowing what weather is approaching (I can't see past the trees) and I'm thinking, another snow storm on the way and I'm raking with a purpose. As I continue raking pine needles, I thought it's time to have fun and think about my next post in "Life in Story" Time to let my imagine run wild...

Story, Wyoming the land where beauty meets bone-chilling reality and the weather has the personality of a middle schooler going through a growth spurt. For those unfamiliar with our little mountain paradise, let me clear something up:

We do not have four seasons.

We have three: July, August… and Winter.

That’s it. That’s the calendar.

Now, every so often, someone from out of town gets bold and says, “Oh, isn’t spring just beautiful up here?” We locals just squint into the gray sky, holding our snow shovels like battle axes and say, “Spring? Never heard of her.”

Let me paint a picture:

It’s late April. You’re feeling optimistic. The sun is shining (barely), the birds are chirping (confused), and you’ve made the grave mistake of putting away your snow boots. Maybe you even dared to wear a light jacket. Maybe… shorts.

That’s when it hits.

The Surprise Spring Snowstorm. You wake up to 10 inches of fresh powder like you live inside a snow globe that just got aggressively shaken by a toddler named Mother Nature. The tulips you bravely planted? Buried. The grill you rolled out? Now a frozen sculpture of shame. And the snow shovel you triumphantly retired last week? Back on active duty like a soldier who never really left the war.

And we take it all in stride, because here in Story, we are built different. We’re not just tough. We’re pine-needle-raking-in-a-blizzard tough.

Yes, that’s the other special treat we get in this charming season-that-shall-not-be-named: pine needles. Millions of ‘em. Blanket-thick. Relentless.

There’s no such thing as a “leaf pile” here. We have needle dunes . And just when you think, “I should probably start raking,” a 40-mph gust sweeps through, slaps the rake out of your hand, and dumps six more trees’ worth of needles on your freshly cleared yard. Oh, and just for fun? It snows again.

You haven’t known true futility until you’ve raked half an acre of needles only for the neighbor’s pine tree, we’ll call him Chuck, to drop his entire top half onto your driveway like, “Nice try, loser.”

But we carry on, because we’re Story folks. We don’t wait for the weather to be “right.” We rake between flurries. We barbecue in snow boots. We wave to the plow guy like he’s Santa Claus in a diesel sleigh. We don’t ask, if it’ll snow again, just how badly and which part of our soul it’ll freeze this time.

So if you’re new to town, here’s a quick seasonal guide:

• July: Summer.

• August: Late summer.

• Every other month: Emotional damage and surprise ice.

• Spring: A suggestion, not a reality.

And when people ask why we stay, why we endure the long winters, the confused springs, the relentless pine showers, we just grin through our frozen face and say:

“Because it’s Story. And we’re tougher than weather.”

Now excuse me, I’ve got to shovel the back porch… again… so I can rake the pine needles underneath.