It’s fitting that the worst storm of the season comes in mid-March. We are so buried that we could never get the generator out of the barn now. If the power goes out, which is likely, we’ll go dark and silent, which is always a kind of spiritual experience. It’s rare to have peace like that in our time.

Maria and I went out and shoved a half dozen times and gave you. There is too much heavy, wet snow. We spent a wonderful hour in the living room watching the hungry birds swarm the feeder outside the window. I am eager to read tonight if the power stays or play chess by candlelight.

I am making progress with my bird photography, and I love taking black-and-white photos in the winter pasture. I’d never see this in a place like Florida, and I would miss it. I’m too old to do much shoveling of wet snow, I stopped soon. But the photo-taking was great fun. I won’t have snow to kick around soon for many months. For that matter, the birds will only be at their feeders for a short time.

It was a beautiful day in so many ways. I overdid the shoveling and the car scraping and began to dehydrate. I sat by the fire and read a bit, then fell asleep. When I woke up, we pulled chairs out. It’s one of the last gasps of winter; it is going out with a big bang.

My Leica class last Sunday was a great success; I’m finally figuring out how to make this complex and excellent camera work. I’m skipping the food pantry food of the day today; I’ll get to it tomorrow.

This storm was serious, but that is also why we are here. There is a lot of life happening on a farm in upstate New York or anywhere else. Somehow, this makes us happy and gives meaning to our lives. What we do matters.

If the power holds up, I’ll upload more of these photos in a few minutes and also tomorrow. But don’t be surprised if the blog is dark tomorrow.

Lulu is in the barn licking the salt block. The donkeys eat hay in the pole barn; the sheep go outside.

Snowdog and Maria

The hills across the road. I can’t remember any snowstorm lasting this long in my time here.

We had a beautiful time sitting in that corner, watching the birds.

Maria is in the barn, getting some hay.

The apple tree in the pasture

The snowcat was on and off his throne all afternoon. She had a lot of fun.

Fate and I got warm together; we came in to dry out.

The winter pasture was made for landscape, and so was my monochrome camera.