Hibernating Milly

Milly isn't really a Winter Person, per se. But then hibernation is a survival strategy some animals use to get through foodless winters. Humans don't generally hibernate, although some cultures have come close.

In 1900, the British Medical Association published a description of winters among Russian peasants. For centuries, they survived scant winter food by engaging in lotska-sleeping the whole season away. "At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence and quietly goes to sleep."

The peasants woke daily to eat some bread and drink some water and then dropped off again, taking turns keeping the fire going. After six months, "the family wakes up, shakes itself, goes out to see if the grass is growing, and by-and-by sets to work at summer tasks," the article states.

In a 2007 New York Times editorial, historian Graham Robb similarly described rural 19th-century France:

'Economists and bureaucrats who ventured out into the countryside after the Revolution were horrified to find that the work force disappeared between fall and spring...Villages and even small towns were silent, with barely a column of smoke to reveal a human presence. As soon as the weather turned cold, people all over France shut themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end.'

Milly and I are looking forward to it.