I’m trying to figure out how to think about this winter, it is not like any other winter. In it’s ferocity and relentless, is the fiercest winter I can remember, there is more snow on the ground than I can recall, it has been colder for longer than I can recall. The first step was for me to laugh at the Weather Channel, they provide continuous relief in their clunky efforts to hype the weather and turn it into a marketing opportunity.

The I thought of Dostoyevsky and the awful Russian winters in his novels, and now, I am coming to see that this is not a bunch of storms, but one storm, it began in January and has been coming around and around for months. Last night, our thermometers read -25 degrees, I am feeling for the donkeys and sheep, who are virtual prisoners in the Pole Barn, they are dry and well fed and healthy, but this is solitary confinement for curious and active grazing animals, there is too much snow now for them to go anywhere.

Still, even this winter has to end and I begged poor Maria to pull the car over so I could hop out and get this yellow barn photography in the storm, it surely spoke to me. She was concerned about my stepping out onto a highway in the midst of a wind and snow storm, I was careful, this would have stayed in my head all night. I am taking Maria off to an inn tomorrow night for one night so that she can rest and be warm, me too.

We have worked side by side this winter, but she is younger than me and stronger than me, and still in recovery from my surgery, I have to be uncharacteristically thoughtful about what I can do. She lost Frieda last week, and Lenore and Simon before that, it is a lot of loss. She is worn out and needs a rest, I hope this one day respite will help her, I know it will help me. We will leave Sunday around noon, come back Monday about the same time.

I wish it was longer, but will be happy for the day and night.