By NANCY JANE KERN
GROWING UP on our dairy farm meant spending much time outside despite the weather. My first recollection of high wind was the 1954 Hurricane Hazel. Winds in Columbia County reached over 100 mph with some terrific gusts recorded at 150 mph. My father walked down to the barn leaning into the wind with dust swirling around him. The cows had to be milked, and we prayed the power would stay on. My mother watched and told us kids to stay in the house. She always feared the wind which she said she felt since she was a child when her father would be afraid.
I have always felt the opposite. I wanted to go out in the wind and feel what it was like. I made it out and into the driveway and started toward the barn. I leaned my whole weight against the wind and couldn’t move. At that point, I had to admit my mother was right and retreated into the house. We watched the trees wave and twist and heard a weird thumping sound by the barn. Part of the tin roof of the big barn was coming loose, and a long strip was blown into the air and landed in the small field west of the house. It was so twisted that the whole piece had to be replaced. The old wooden shingles below the tin managed to hold on and keep out the oncoming torrents of rain.
The milking got done and then the power went out. Roads were washed out, creeks overflowed, and trees were blown down. A few weeks later we went down to Waterbury, CT, to visit some relatives and saw the areas where the Housatonic River flooded and the general mayhem along the way. It made a big impression on all of us, and we counted ourselves lucky to have had only roof damage. That was the extreme wind. Lesser wind I loved. I would ride my horse up on top of a hill and let the wind blow through my hair and watch the horse’s mane billow out and swirl back against me. I could tell he liked it too. If a thunderstorm was coming, I would rapidly head home to avoid a lightning strike.
I did not know about those out-of-the-clear-blue strikes until one sunny afternoon years later when a bolt hit and shattered a tree down the road. I survived, but it scared me, my two friends, and the ponies we were leading to another pasture.
Earthly wind is defined as a large movement of gases caused by changes in temperatures and the rotation of the earth, often gaining moisture over water. Throughout history, man has been fascinated with the wind and inspired to write about it. Songs were written too about storms at sea and in the 1960’s one was Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” In “Wind in the Trees,” author Gilbert Chesterton wrote, “The wind tugs at the trees as if it might pluck them root and all out of the earth like tufts of grass.” Or, to try yet another desperate figure of speech for this unspeakable energy, “the trees are straining and tearing and lashing as if they were a tribe of dragons each tied by the tail.” I like that one. It is interesting to study various phenomena in our world. Sometimes though we should experience it and be part of it.
To stand on my hill and look out at the Catskills and feel the wind in my hair is enough. March gave us wind, snow, and Spring last week. March is supposed to go out like a lamb, but I am okay if there’s a gentle breeze
