And...We're back!

I know it's been approximately 700 years, but I'm definitely back in effect, and bringing you all the wholesomeness that can be squeezed out of the Wild West.

As you know, we're finally leaving the long winter of The Long Winter behind and along with it (hopefully) the pioneer-soul-crushing prose. Woo! If for no other reason than that things couldn't possibly get worse, I have high hopes for Little Town on the Prairie. Just look at the cover...

Kittens!!!

Of course this is the cover of The Long Winter, which makes the six harrowing months of starvation, deprivation and chilblains look like the set of a J.Crew Kids photo shoot. For all I know the Ingalls' are just waiting for that kitten to put on a little weight before they hook it up to a plow and whip the mewl out of it.

You never know with these masochists.

But sure enough, Laura makes spring time on the Dakota prairie seem like a little slice of heaven. Full of meadow larks and bright eyed jack rabbits and the fun of teaching the new baby cow how to drink milk out of a pail. But even calf schoolin' can't compare to the excitement of Pa's new fangled plow.

I know, this is HUGE.

It pulls up the sod like a dream (I won't comment on the fact that this kind of farming technique played a part in creating the dust bowl of the 1930's (oh wait, I just did.)) and it's so easy to use that after the day's plowing is done, "Pa was not to tired to joke." See, this book is less soul crushing already! Of course Laura doesn't get a lot of exposure to humor (Ma inexplicably finds jokes of all kinds sinful) so know that when she says "joke," she means mild plow related humor prefaced by Pa's favorite exclamation, "by jingo!"

But the plow's not just a boon for the family and their feeble grasp on comedy, the plow horses are experiencing a big benefit too. Gone are the days of bumming everyone out by getting all "sad and gaunt" during spring planting. Now after they're unhitched, they still have the energy to roll around happily in the dirt for moments at a time.

Most life affirming of all, Ma has taken the little china shepherdess (the symbol for her fragile sanity) out of hiding and placed it back on the little wooden bracket Pa carved in Wisconsin. Before they became itinerant subsistence farmers.

Of course there are still problems for the clan Ingalls. Mary for one, is still blind. On top of that, she works so hard to be good that she keeps twisting herself into a spiritual pretzel, wondering if trying to be good means you secretly aren't. My prediction - Mary's dying a virgin.

Problem two is that the house is overrun with mice. Old testament overrun. To the point where one chewed off a big hunk of Pa's hair while he was sleeping. How freaky is that? Getting that personal with your head means they're totally running all over your body while you sleep with their naked feet. Possibly peeing on your face, who knows.

(I had a mouse in my old apartment who never ate any of my hair but still gave me nightmares when his nocturnal skritching around my apartment invaded my dreams. On the plus side, my building manager told me that the pest control guy thought I had the nicest apartment in the whole building.)

Pest control is where our little fuzzy cover-kitten comes in. I knew it couldn't possibly just be for fun - everyone in the claim shanty works for their homemade bread. Pa paid the outrageous sum of 50 cents for the little guy to stop the forced hair cuts, possible face peeing and general pantry raiding rodents. So that problem's on the way to being bloodily solved but what about Mary? Laura's greatest wish, beyond enjoying the wide open vistas of the prairie, is to get together enough money to send Mary to a school for the blind back east. Well, Pa's got a solution for that too, but it's a bit of a devil's bargain. Laura can earn money working in town (which she consider's one of the inner rings of hell) sewing shirts.

So now friends we have a clue as to how Laura's soul is going to be crushed for the next 300 odd pages. Join me won't you?