At 2:30 in the afternoon the sun was behind the south hill, but the day was unusually warm and bright. I went out to bring in the rest of my firewood. Starting tomorrow night, they say, we’ll get between three to six inches of a “wintry mix” of sleet and snow, topped with a glaze of ice. It’s the kind of weather that brings down power lines and trees. It’s best to be prepared.

Before I turn to take the last log into the house, I ask Mother Maple and the Hawk Tree to protect me and all their children, as if they had such powers, and send them wishes to fare well through the storm. Both of them have seen many storms before. This is nothing new either for them or for me. And truth be told, it will impact other regions of the country far more than the one where we stand. I say these things to the trees only because we have spent many years together and they hold a special place in my heart.

The good news is that tomorrow is Ground Hog’s Day, and the coming storm’s approach means the sky will be blanketed with clouds. According to the legend, when the ground hog doesn’t see his shadow on the second day of February, it portends an early spring. In my book a little storm seems a small price to pay for such luxury. Bring it on.

In the light of the afternoon sun you can see that deer have passed by, that the little juncos were out pecking through the snow for seeds. The long shadows of the trees follow the curves of the hill down its slopes. And the snow itself glitters as if a choir of angels had spent the night sprinkling diamond dust from the heavens.

“This is your reward,” I think to myself as I climb the hill. The snow rises in glistening little clouds around my boots. I stop for a moment and listen to the silence of the woods. The birds have had their breakfasts and are resting now, conserving their energy. I’m as grateful on their behalf as I am for my own sake that the sun has reappeared with its gentle winter warmth. We needed this.

 I notice that my face is wearing a smile as I continue my climb, adding my tracks to those the animals made. They seem to link us together somehow, these signs that we were here, on this hill, in the shimmering snow at this moment in time. “Every now and then,” I sometimes say, “a moment comes along that makes all the rest of them worth it.” This, surely, is one of those.

“This is not about freedom or personal choice,” he said.

He was wrong.

That’s exactly what it’s about, and has been, since the very beginning.

On some mornings, the sheets feel especially soft, the blankets wonderfully warm. Outside the kitchen window, the thermometer tells why,

But in the lilac, the wee birds, feathered balls plumped against the cold, are already gathered, waiting for seed. And the woodstove, too, wants feeding.

I pour a cup of hot coffee, add a dollop of cream, pull on my boots and gloves, and out I go. The birds flee, as if I have startled them from deep dreams. But the chickadees return as I sing to them, chirping their own little songs. And before I am even back in the house, the rest of the birds come, too.

The warmth from the stove’s glowing embers greets my face as I open its door and offer it a fresh supply of the maple branches I dragged down the hill last fall and cut to just the right size.

I sweep the bits of snow my boots tracked in, sip coffee, watch the birds through the window.

The rising sun is painting the trees with gold.

This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Yes. I will be glad and savor its joy.

Jack Frost left this etching on my window this morning. I call it “Dreaming of Palm Trees.” The temperature here has been hovering just north of 0 for a couple days now. I think Jack was offering a getaway.

Half a century ago, musicians I liked wrote a piece called “Thinking is the Best Way to Travel.” Prescient boys, those. I think they got that one exactly right.

I call her The Mother Tree. She dominates the south hill, rising from near its crest, her graceful branches spread wide, as if in welcome.

I’ve watched her swell with pink buds in the springtime that evolve into summer’s green leaves. In autumn, she wears red as only a maple can do. And now, in winter, she dances naked in the wind and embraces the falling snow.

She’s twice as old as I am, and maybe half again more.

A hundred years ago, a road that stretched between New York and Chicago passed beneath her limbs. Travelers would stop to rest and perhaps to spend the night in the house just down the hill from her, the one where I live now. She’s seen the miners dig coal right over there to the west, and clear fields in the valley to the north, turning them into farmland. She’s watched the lives of all the woodland’s creatures, and of the humans who passed by or stopped to make their homes here .

I figure she knows a thing or two. So when I’m troubled and want to scream to the world about the errors of its ways, about all its injustices and wrongs, I open the back door and gaze at her for a while. And she tells me to be at peace, that it is the wind’s task to bluster, and the creek’s role to roar, and that some of us are meant simply to stand, and watch, and let go. Your gifts will bud and spread and fall, all of their own accord. And your essence will sing through your being.

The snow plow just went past for about the twentieth time today. But the snow has finally stopped now and this pass should be his last. According to the weather guys, we have three days of sunshine coming up. Three whole days! In a row! It’s like a reward for enduring the gloom.

The first day after the Big Snow I got to go out and play. I shoveled the sidewalk and made paths to everywhere in the yard I might need to go. But then everything iced up, and navigating got tricky. Indoors was the safest place to be.

It was sort of like a weather-imposed lockdown. It called forth a renewed wave of empathy for all of us who suffered inside for reasons (or lack of them, depending on your point of view) unrelated to weather.

I was beginning to get bored. But then I remembered to exercise, get the blood pumping, clear the pipes. While I bounced on my rebounder, I started to make a mental list of all the things I could do inside. Then, from out of nowhere, the Statler Brothers popped into my head and started singing: “Counting flowers on the wall . . .” It made me laugh. Things-I-Could-Do-Indoors lists can be a lot more creative and fun than that.

Laughing was just what I needed, the icing on the exercise cake so to speak. Try ‘em both if you’re bored. Then make a list.