Snowmobiles

Miniature “yield” signs barely peek over the snow on each side of our driveway. At the start of the season, they stood more than 3 feet tall on iron posts, but during the snowy winter, the ditch has filled until only the red and white triangles are visible. It looks as though the signs are tucked into the snow with one corner and secured that way.

The signs are for the snowmobiles that cruise down our ditches. I am not sure how many of the drivers actually see the yield signs, especially on Saturday nights. Little troops of them, approach single file in the dark, looking like bright points of light speeding towards us in the dark. They gather speed in the ditch then vault up the steep little slope that leads up to our driveway. They go airborne. They soar across our drive, thump down on the other side, and speed away down into the ditch in a fury of noise and headlights.

After it snows, a John Deere tractor with tracks instead of wheels laboriously drives down the ditch during the afternoon, dragging some kind of implement behind it to groom the trail. The implement levels the little walls of white that build up along the edges of our driveway. As the tractor heads back down the steep slope from our driveway into our ditch, the implement often goes askew. A patient looking man often hops out of the cab without a jacket, makes an adjustment to the implement, and dutifully pushes on towards the south.

In spite of the care that goes into preparing their trail, the snowmobiles often sound kind of cranky, like children complaining about a home-cooked dinner. When I am outside, I hear small engines whine back and forth in complaining phrases punctuated by silence. Sometimes they join in an undulating chorus that is almost like the howling of coyotes, except it is lower and less ethereal.

After listening to the howling snowmobiles all winter, I again heard the actual coyotes. I am still afraid of those animals, and I am still bitter because I suspect that they ate my beloved cat. When I heard them though, my heart jumped with gladness for the first time, and the eerie tones made me feel more alive. Before I could think, I spoke to the coyotes: “Thank God you're still here.”