Photo by bobby hendry on Unsplash

 

The snow piles up, the wind whirls and we huddle inside together. The warmth of fire, and the glow of its light welcomes us, warming not just our bodies but also our hearts. Such a good time to pick up a book, hug a family member, cuddle with a cup of tea or cocoa.

 

I delighted in the lightness of the snow, and the peacefulness of the white cover blanketing the world and cloaking it in serenity and silence. The snow muffles sound and insulates. My hens are warmer for the cloak of white around their coop, though they daintily walk in my footprints, not wanting to sink in the powder of white. I stomp down more snow around their run and they follow. They struggle on the ice-covered ramp to their food, so instead fly up to both food and water. They cackle – where are our treats? Where’s our scratch (something like dessert for them, which helps keep them warm)? Even in the single digit temperatures, they venture out into the sun, though their pathways are narrower than in other seasons. They huddle in their warm down, their personal protection from the wind and cold.

 

The sun, the beautiful sun that brightens each day, lights the trees. The trees in their various colors of grey – greenish where the moss and lichen grows, bark tinted in various shades of brown, bows bent under the weight of the early ice still holding them now embedded in the drifts of snow, hunched over like skeletons of long lost long cabins or wigwams. Amid this songbirds fly, adding bright color, the sounds of their pecking, fluttering and singing compliment the creaking of limbs as the breeze quietly dances with branches held high into the sky.

 

I carry in another load of wood. This beauty and peacefulness has stoked me. It’s time to stoke the fire.