Every winter, as I fight my natural instinct to wait out the wind and snow, curled up fetal under a pile of fleece until April, my thoughts turn to the pioneers from long ago and their little houses on the prairie.

Seriously, HOW did they DO that?

What kind of stock moves to a foreign country and crosses it in horse-drawn wagons to raise a family in a claim shanty on the plains? Without heat or air conditioning? I would have called it quits somewhere in the Appalachians.

Oh, who am I kidding? I would have never boarded the boat from Ireland in the first place.

The closest I’ve come to pioneer living was listening to “Rawhide” on our family’s only camping trip, where we sat in the minivan and watched my dad set up a tent in the rain. I slept in that minivan for three nights.

My friend, Susan, however, has embraced pioneer living to an extraordinary length. Every summer she leads her five kids in what she calls “Pioneer Week,” living the pioneer life at home in sweltering Phoenix.

For the entire week, they work outside and sleep in the living room. They live off a meager supply of food cooked over a fire and pass the time without any modern amenities, like running water. Or electricity. Or Facebook.

I have long-admired her stamina and always wondered how that would fly with our four kids.

My question was recently answered while reading the “Little House” series book, “The Long Winter,” to my crew.

Winter lasted seven months in the Dakotas that year. The Ingalls family had moved into Pa’s two-room building in town with one stove for heat. Blizzards pounded the town weekly, canceling school until May. Too cold and snowy to leave the house, they rarely saw their neighbors. They passed their days sitting by the stove, twisting hay into kindling to keep the fire going, as the town’s coal supply was gone. The town’s wheat supply was nearly gone, too. They survived on carefully rationed toast and potatoes, nearly starving to death. The train could not get through with deliveries, so nothing new was brought into the house all winter long; no new toys, books, clothing, newspapers. They only had each other …

My children sat wide-eyed and silent as I read, pondering (I thought) the hardships of the pioneers.

Then they spoke.

“Why didn’t they just go to the grocery store?” … “Or move somewhere warm … like Mexico?” … (sigh) “This is a boring story. Can we watch TV yet?”

Obviously they could use a pioneer week with someone to toughen them up and lead them in hard-core winter chores. We probably all could.

But (thankfully) Susan lives too far away.

Which leaves us rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ through the long winter on our own, gathered ’round the fire(place) and waiting for spring, here in the 21st century. Right where we belong.