SOL18: In Like a Lion, But Where is the Lamb?
Posted on March 8th, 2018
Is there a more lonely, desolate sound than that of the wind howling around the corner of the house? I’m listening to that haunting sound as I’m typing this post, and I’m nearly certain that there isn’t. Not that howling wind is anything unusual for us. When you live in West Texas, you have to be ready for unrelenting 20-30 mph winds with gusts to 40mph some days. And not just in March. So that old proverb, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” doesn’t hold true here.
I mostly love the weather here in San Angelo. We have very moderate winters and lots of sunshine. But we also have this wind. I was born and raised in the desert (Las Cruces, NM), so I’m no stranger to wind, but when it blows hard for days, it can affect my mood. When we first married and lived in Brownfield (aptly named), the dust would blow in around edges of the wood casement windows in our rent house so bad that in the spring we would sleep with a cloth over our faces and stuff dish towels into the window sills. Even better was the piercing sound the wind made screeching in around the edges of the aluminum storm door. It howled so bad one day, that I called Ken at work to ask if I should get in the tub for safety. He chuckled and reassured me that there was no tornado; it only sounded bad.
We now live 160 miles south of all that blowing dirt in a tightly built brick house. However, the wind still blows hard many days, and the house is situated so that the prevailing southwest wind creates a howling sound, as it is today.
I try to imagine sometimes what it must have been like for those first settlers living West Texas. It’s worth a trip to the Proctor Historical Park at the Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech to see first hand the houses those early West Texas ranchers lived in. The day we walked through the outdoor collection of homes moved in off ranches, the wind blew as it usually does. The box and strip house was simply a box-like structure built of strips of wood running lengthwise with a roof on it. Of course, wind blew in through those cracks between the wood. The docent explained that women would paste newspapers over the wood to try to seal out the wind. Right…
Think I’ll count my blessings in “my little house of bricks,” brew another cup of tea, and turn up the volume on Pandora!
“Think I’ll count my blessings in “my little house of bricks,” brew another cup of tea, and turn up the volume on Pandora!” Sounds like a great way to deal with a day that you don’t want to be out in. As soon as you mentioned “the wind howling around the corner of the house” I was instantly transported to my best friend’s house when they first moved to Yoder, WY. The wind would do just that! The guest room was on the corner and I spent many nights listening to that howling.
The wind was howling the other day here, with an arctic bite to it. I liked reading about the dust – it reminds me of reading about dust storms on the prairies.
Interesting difference in the weather! We get a little windy in March in Florida, but not what like what you shared. I can’t imagine what it was like in the past. It is funny how weather can really affect us.