Seeing the End of Winter

Soulstice and the barn

I am walking around the farm today, saying goodbye to winter, for the weather forecast calls for rain, followed by highs in the forties and fifties this week.  Some nights aren't even expected to fall below freezing.  Like the winter’s end that I knew finished my last cold season living in the trailer, when Soulstice was so close to completion we could have moved in and lived amidst untrimmed drywall, the new life in a solid concrete house stretched its hand out to us like Michelangelo’s God.  That winter, the relief of knowing our tenure in the drafty, battle-worn, thin-walled metal can we called home was nearly done gave me an unexpected burst of creativity and joy.  I found tiny house videos on YouTube, admiring the 10’ x 10 dwellings of young singles and couples, tidy, complete, uncluttered, built on wheels, and usually parked in a bustling city.

I tidied our trailer, cleaned out the clutter and cobwebs, threw the mucky boots back into the cardboard banana box, washed and put away the dirty dishes, flounced the curtains, gathered up the abandoned socks, and snapped photos of our miniature dwelling of the last 5 winters.  I took a new pride in our home that I hadn't been able to take all those years before because I knew I was free of the fear of ridicule, free of the fear of a broken down furnace, of a blown-over mobile home in a wind storm.  I would soon live in an impenetrable house built more solidly than any other dwelling I have ever lived in.

Today, I find myself in the happy position of stomping through the thick snow, noting the way the  snowflakes meander down from the sky against the slate woods, the way that looking up the snowy hill to the weathered, charcoal gray barn shows the thin wisps of powdery snow blown over the surface of the snow blanketing the landscape.  I say goodbye to the simple beauty of the rust-red manure spreader parked in the open field, swamped in the sea of snow.  The simple palette of soft colors -- warm French gray sumac limbs and goldenrod stalks, buff grass fronds, rusty oak leaves, and charcoal gray cherry tree trunks -- seems to invite a quiet mind, a settled spirit, the beginning of patience.  

The fresh face of the new-fallen snow smooths divots and boot tracks, lending a uniform surface for the sun to paint long blue sassafras shadows on, like dancers caught and frozen in a moment.  A short-run show, nature presents the beauty of a winter’s landscape today, while the chanticleer cardinal sits atop the Sugar Maple tree and sings of the coming attraction with vigor and salesmanship.  He’s into ticket sales already, while I am catching the last of the current show.  

Soon, I will be trying to pry broody hens off of their nests.  Soon, we will peel boots off at the back door to hold back the tide of mud slopping in.  Soon, we will collect maple sap in a big black trash can and boil it down all day long.  Soon, we will watch the daffodils rising up from the earth with swelling flower buds that promise to open the tenderness of spring with the nectar-scent of their flowers.

Groundhog’s Day, the date that marks the halfway point in our journey from December 20th, the shortest day of the year and March 20th, the Vernal Equinox, is two weeks behind us now as we climb the wheel of the year.  The days are lengthening and the sunlight waxing stronger daily.  Feel it on your face and know it is so.  Gather up the most of winter you can, remember the tattered sound of dead oak leaves rattling against their twigs in the cold January wind, find the place in the snow the young deer pawed clear to eat thick English Ivy leaves in the woods, touch the barbed wire fence where the wide dog prints pass through and where remains a cluster of coarse brown and black wavy hairs.  Shiver to know that coyotes, those clever predators that meld into the landscape, were the dogs who passed here just hours ago.  You have crossed paths with the truly wild and free.  

Gather the gifts that winter has to share, and the knowledge that when spring frees your feet and strips you of your heavy winter coat, you will relish it all the more for the winter you absorbed today.

Wishing you bright mornings filled with birdsong,
Betsy