Sometimes I think the chickens are mesmerized by the Ethereal Winter, as I am. For chickens, winter means days and weeks in the coop – they don’t come out unless they see the ground, and we are used to giving them feed and water there. We have had a little snow, and a week of chilly temperatures, but it is back up in the 40’s. There is a lot of winter left to go, but it is almost February and here, a place of savage and relentless winters, it doesn’t seem as if winter has really even come.

Will it pass us by this year? Just waiting to show its fangs, as it has done to the people who live below us and are still digging out. It is surreal here, confusing. It is also beautiful. We can still walk in the deep woods every morning, something we can’t do when the snows come and stay. I go around in my sweater, I don’t need jackets and boots. Our house is kept warm by our two wood stoves, we hardly ever need to turn on the heat.

The dogs and I are still herding sheep, and I have taken only one or two photos of the Winter Pasture, which I love to photograph. It is easier to live in this kind of winter, easier to get around, safer to drive and walk. The winter is, to me, yet another message from Mother Earth to pay attention to her, yet an hour from here, that is three feet of snow. Our leaders mostly hide from this new reality, science is pushed aside in favor of ideology, the earth bleeds.

The chickens know this, I think. Like farmers, they live in the weather, their lives depend on understanding it. They seem disoriented to me, confused and uneasy. The rhythms of life have been altered disrupted. The warmth is illusory, misleading. I don’t want to fear the weather, but I do want to listen to it, to understand the message. The chickens know it, I think, they are looking around in confusion.