A fickle winter

New England winter

Winter has been fickle this year.

Freezing cold, then spring-like warmth, followed by a double whammy of Nor’easters, winds battering our homes and felling trees. The bushes and crocuses don’t know whether to bud or hibernate again. As we don’t know if it makes more sense to break out our shorts or parkas. A dilemma.

Weather like this has never happened before, we are told. Historic. Unlike the great glacial ice sheets that covered the land or the warmth that melted them. “Has never happened in recorded history,” we are told. But recorded history is so diminutive compared to the thousands of millions of years preceding our epoch.

Yet somehow life has flourished. We have flourished. And most likely will continue to do so, God willing and absent a huge meteor strike. Which is exceedingly improbable, yet possible.

Winter, whether freezing or less so, remains a time for reflection.

Many years ago, we as children loved to camp out in the barn on a stormy winter night, the snow blowing thick and sideways, the mercury headed below zero. But the barn was shelter from the wind, with the lowing of cows and the gentle whickering and stamping of horses, a refuge. Nothing pleased us more than to cuddle a puppy in the hayloft, sweet smells of dried alfalfa and timothy permeating the air, wrapped up in blankets and snug for the night, while the wicked storm raged outdoors.

Now, we join in the New England glories of winter sports. For some, skiing mountain peaks. For others, snowmobiling on trails in New Hampshire or Maine. And others, ice fishing in the frozen north, or snowshoeing the forests trails of Rhode Island to Massachusetts and Vermont and beyond. Unlike our forebears, we like to stay active. Perhaps because necessary doings, milking the cows and tossing the hay and shoveling the manure, are no longer an imperative. Yet we feel an ancestral drive to do something.

But winter is also respite. All of God’s creatures rest, and recoup, and prepare for the spring to come. And when it does, life bursts forth.

And so we plan. Tomatoes, basil, parsley, corn, pole beans, spinach. The garden is taking shape in our minds. Traditional rows or wide rows, raised beds or containers. The form of our garden-to-come is subject to intense deliberation. But, while intriguing, it is not vital. Now it is mostly a matter of recreation rather than the bulwark against hunger it once was.

Yet, still, the garden is important. Symbolizing our connection to the earth, it provides us with healthy food and a healthy pastime. What wonderful meals we will prepare.

The weeks will grow progressively warmer, the grass will green, and spring will come. These tales of winter will fade quickly. Memories of shoveling and skiing and snowmobiling and snowshoeing will meld into gardening and sailing, golfing and other summer pursuits.

It happens every year.  And we are blessed to experience each one, silly not to recognize and appreciate each passing season. Time quickly passes. While life grows more complex, and our burdens increase, remember such childhood pleasures as cuddling a puppy in a hayloft. How could life possibly be better?