Winter

All of the boxes and bags have climbed the ladder to the space above our garage. Everything stacked
neatly, ready for the next Christmas. Garland, frozen into position is unwillingly unraveled from the
wood fence around our sleeping garden and lamppost. Paul teeters on the ladder pulling down the
swinging lights from the front of the house. As undressing usually does, it leaves everything bare.
Without the sparkle, there is a new starkness to the house: a Quaker-like geometry to the furniture
against the walls. I like it, but I don’t.

As if on cue, the cold arrives. Standing in line at our local store I overhear someone talking about their
hands becoming frost-bitten the other night. He holds them out and they are covered with small, red,
open sores. I can’t help asking him how long he had been outside without gloves and he answers that it
was not long. I don’t have reference to what, exactly, “not long” means to him but am internally
chastised about doing my own evening farm chores without hands being gloved.

We take turns walking to the kitchen window and announcing the temperature as it rather rapidly drops
below zero while the light fades. Practicing in the back room I hear clunks of wood banging into the
wood stove on a continual basis. The draft of the stove open for full air flow, I walk past and see the
comforting red glow. The dogs take to lying, belly-up against the large stone the stove sits on. Each
morning I pull chunky wool sweaters from under our bed and swaddle. Paul piles on layer after layer
before heading outside for morning chores. He calls goodbye from behind the hood of his sweatshirt,
the final layer before his winter coat. He grabs his wool hat that I had Sam, our farm-knitter, make as a
Christmas gift for him and, after a bracing pause, heads out.

This is the weather of thick soups and stews. Sunday afternoon I drag a bowl of potatoes up from our
root cellar, chop them into small squares and drop them, splattering, into an oiled cast iron. I follow
with a few onions and spices. Later I am stirring a thickened corn chowder. When Paul comes through
the door, a blast of cold announcing his arrival, he mentions that the smell had beckoned him inside and
asks for a taste. The soup will be lunches for the upcoming week, easy to ladle into a mug and eat while
working.

Each evening we light a fire in the fireplace, unfold our square, black card table and eat, watching the
logs burn. Our feet are tucked under the table, kept warm by a curled-up dog. When we are finished,
Paul tackles dishes while I bundle up to do final check on animals. Seamus sits by the front door,
knowing where we are headed and, as the door opens, charges out.

My boots squeak in the snow as I step out into the darkness. Looking up, the sky is filled with stars. I
stand and watch a satellite silently move across the milky way. Tonight the moon is a cradle, only
slightly visible through tops of the bare trees. I quickly count birds in both coops and grab a scoop of
cracked corn for the sheep. They hear me open the metal can of corn and begin calling from the barn.
Once inside, standing in between the sliding doors of the barn I watch them jostle each other for better
position: their black legs, like spindly sticks coming out from their rounded wool coat. I reach out to
give one of the ewes an ear scratch but she wants none of it. The corn, a cold-weather treat, is too
precious to take eyes off.

While some complain about the early darkness of winter, I relish it. During lighter months, we pack as
much as possible into each day, pushing in more, if possible, with both feet rather like packing wool.
Now we say farewell to the end of fall, the beauty and the difficulty of the harvest. As light fades, I feel
my internal rhythm slow to a walk, welcome after months of running.

A Polar Vortex pushes sub-zero cold into the northeast, dropping us deeper into hibernation. We light
the fireplace on Saturday afternoon, pull out our wool blanket and sit, cocooned, feet in each other’s
lap, books in hand. During the holidays we fill the house with music: winter is the time for silence,
allowing us to keep pace with the simple tick of our grandfather clock in the corner.

Snow begins Sunday afternoon canceling a Robert Burns party we are scheduled to attend at friend’s
who we aren’t able to see often as they live over an hours’ drive away. The day now lies open, waiting.
We feel like we are school-kids with a snow day as we eat breakfast closer to lunch and watch the snow
begin to accumulate. Josh drives over kicking snow from his boots as he comes in. Seamus loves Josh
and immediately circles his legs for attention. Now we three sit at the bar in the kitchen, backs to the
wood stove and share English muffins with our raspberry jam slathered on them.

As Paul does the dishes, I pack up eight skeins of oatmeal colored yarn and two pairs of hand knit
mittens sold. Their square box sits on the dining room table ready for me to take to the post office
tomorrow. Three very ripe bananas wait in the yellow bowl on the counter. I grab our honey and begin
a banana bread. The recipe is calling for two eggs and I look over and find we only have one sitting in
our egg basket. I pull on my barn coat and hurry out the door toward the coops. The cold startles,
making me intake my breath quickly. I say a little prayer and open the front coop. We have kept the
chickens inside to keep them warm. They are wandering around, housebound. I glance at the three
empty nests.

Better luck in the back Youth Hostel, one nest has two eggs in it, one broken but one waiting for my
banana bread. As I walk back I am reminded of how wonderful it is to raise our own food.
We finish the little collection of jobs we tend to store up and spend the rest of the afternoon smelling
warm banana bread, reading and pausing to watch snow fall. Our dogs catch our rhythm and nap by the
fire.

Before bed Paul heads out for a final walkabout with Seamus and Bronte. He wanders down the road,
lit only by stars. The sheep curiously watch them walk past. Inside I put away washed dishes and turn
off lights. Standing in the kitchen I notice the living room is filled with shadows cast from the dying
fire. Paul stokes the wood stove as I turn down covers. I crawl under the wool blanket and read, head
partially covered. We normally shut our bedroom door which leaves us without heat, but not in this
cold. We open the door a crack.

In the night I get up and hurry to use the bathroom. When I come back into the room I dive back under
the nest of flannel sheets and pile of wool blankets. This remains one of my favorite moments, not quite
awake but not back to sleep, only possible in the quiet of winter: there is a sacredness in the return to
warmth from the edginess of cold. I lie in the dark, push down into the sheepskin covering our mattress
and breathe.