Severe Weather Events are Nothing New! Laura Wrote about Them!

I've been reading a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Donald Zochert. What a lovely book. Laura wrote her mostly biographical little house stories when she was in her 60s after a long and exciting life. Zochert treats her story with wit and tenderness.

I especially enjoyed the refrain throughout the book about Pa and his honey-colored fiddle that played tunes that were cheerful, sorrowful, and called to mind the days of auld lang sine. Many events in Laura's life recalled episodes of the long-playing TV series with Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert. Our whole family loved gathering round the television to watch the show -- so heart warming! Not like so much of today's TV trash.


One thought that kept coming to me as I read the book was, omigosh, they had blizzards and droughts and major floods -- but, but....that was in the days before global warming. How could that be? They lived through the "big snow" when back to back blizzards kept them snowed in for weeks.Then there was the October snow in the Dakotas that came up so suddenly some of the cows muzzles froze to the ground and they died standing in the storm unable to move.

And the droughts! So many times Pa worked hard to bring in a crop only to lose it to long weeks without rain. Add to that the horde of grasshopperss that came in like one of the plagues of Egypt with their voracious appetites to wipe out the crops.

So what caused those extreme events in the days before global warming? Maybe, just maybe, it was normal variations in climate.

I think Pope Francis would like Laura's philosophy of life. I know I do:

At long last I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all....I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worth while, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest and living close to nature...The true way to live is to to enjoy every moment as it passes and surely it is in the everyday things around us that the beauty of life lies....A good New Year's resolution for all of us to make: To simplify our lives as much as possible.

Let us all try to live simpler lives putting God at the center. I have a feeling we would all be much happier.