Bracing for November, and December, and January...

Just surviving winter feels like an accomplishment up here. I know, I know, it is only late October. Halloween is not quite here. I shouldn't go around looking for trouble, and today was spectacular--bright sunshine burned off the morning fog and glowed through the yellow leaves still hanging from most of the birches and maples.

But it is hard not to anticipate the cold that is soon to come, even on a warm, sunny day. The fog was the soft blanket that followed last night's hard frost.

And while the fog gradually burned off, I helped my sister and brother-in-law stack more than a cord of wood in the barn behind their house. That cord was less than half the mountain of wood they will move and stack in neat rows in preparation for the worst of the winter months.

Even with all our modern power tools and conveniences, winter is a lot of work. Living where living itself feels like the achievement is a challenge to my middle-class sensibilities. A good thing, I think, most days.