I view aging as a fascinating and continuous chapter of change. You give something, you get something. Only death can stop growth, and maybe not even then.

I think of getting older most often in winter when there is the constant danger of falling—a life change I keep being told about.  and because it gets very cold. This time of year usually shapes my life. It takes a lot, and I get a lot. I shiver a lot.

There are no flower photos outside, and my cardiologist warns that since I have heart disease, being out in the cold much is a bad idea. I’ve already stopped driving at night in the winter because the shining roads would be dangerous for me.

Beyond that, it hurts that I can’t help Maria with the chores in the morning, and I can’t breathe outside when it’s sub-zero.  I can’t help shovel the walk. I can’t help feed the animals.

I’m not used to letting outside things block my life, but I accept it. I can now do all sorts of things I never did.

On the bright side, my blog has gotten better. More and more people are reading it, and I have no choice but to take photos of the farm in the morning in winter. The response to that has been excellent. Losing something or gaining something is what it feels like to me.

I love my pantry work; it has helped brighten winter for me. I love going there and seeing the volunteers hauling those boxes around the food sent by the Army of Good rolling out of the trucks. Talk about feeling warm.

There are many reasons why I don’t hear from most of the people I grew up with or worked with who are not around these days, and I would rather not know why most of the time. Fortunately, I won’t read a newspaper and look at its obituaries, I don’t get a newspaper and there are no obituaries.

As soon as I can figure it out, I won’t get much news either.

Winter is the most enjoyable time of year for me; it challenges me to read more, take better photos, meditate better, and meditate with birds. I have no trouble filling the time; I am busier and working harder than ever.

I sometimes say that older people feel invisible in a culture of people who seem conditioned to see right through us.

In the North Country, where I live on a small farm with donkeys, sheep, a barn cat, and dogs, the winters and the snow storms are a good reason for any saner older adult to be in Florida now, playing cards in their condos or streaming movies at night.

Some go to the beach occasionally; the people I know say it’s too hot to go to the ocean, and the seaweed and boiling shores rot in the heat and smell. But the Florida idea is very deep into the consciousness of American elderly it’s the holy Grail in many ways the reward for life.

Because I love photographing them, I’ve noticed that old farmers work until they drop or until their wives can’t stand the cows anymore. These older men reluctantly head to Florida just about now (their kids like to come over for Christmas or New Year’s. )

Almost every farmer I know or have photographed has died soon after their second or third winter there. I asked one farmer why he thought this was true, and he said real farmers work hard seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, all their lives.

When they aren’t working the cows, they fix tractors, climb feed towers, or chase the calves back into the pastures. And, of course, there is milking—not on vacations, but every day. I’ve not done manual labor since college, and I can’t imagine how empty retirement would leave me. I have to work and feel relevant; my life has to have some meaning beyond warmth.

“We can’t handle the quiet,” the old farmer says,, “we can’t figure out what to do all day in Florida with all these tanned kids and cheerful “seniors” and their loud grandkids. So, a lot of us die. The New  York people have never done hard labor; it’s an easy transition for them. They do the same thing up here as they do down there. They live a long longer than we do.”

Some people think I’m crazy for staying here all winter, but it’s what I want and where I should be. How could I live without donkeys braying softly at me yards ago to lure me with a falfala treat? They always get it. I’m not sure I ever saw a donkey until I moved to the country. Maria and I cannot imagine living without them.

I was always the odd one out, the oddball, the weird and solitary freak. I have to admit those things are still valid. Smart people tend to stay away from me; they all look healthy – tanned, lean, clean, and well-dressed. They do not weather the snow and cold by stepping in manure in the morning and communing with donkeys.

I don’t go to Florida for many reasons, the simplest being that we can’t afford to buy a condo or RV. I wouldn’t want to spend it that way if we had the money (which we don’t). Instead, I would play bridge or go to the gym daily.

Staying up here comes with some drawbacks.

Two or three times a winter, I get a friendly note from our electric company warning me not to shovel snow, walk on ice, or walk in subzero weather unless bundled up and accompanied by an adult.

This initially annoyed me, so I wrote them back, wondering what business it was of theirs what I did with snow. I signed up for electric power, not a Grandmother, I wrote. I did not ever get a letter back.

When I run into someone who knows me on the street, they look at me as if I have a cancerous nose and ask in a voice filled with anticipated grief: “Jon, are you okay,” or “Jon, is Maria okay,” or “Jon, is the farm okay? Are the animals okay?”

Yes, I talk, unable to resist a very concerned “friend” already mourning for me.

Well, May, we are doing well. We got five rats in a single week, beating the record of our cat “Zip.” It worked. Her eyes widened, and she retreated before I could yell, “May, how are YOU?”

I suspect May will ignore me in the future.

Zip, I thought, is not a Florida cat. He is an upstate New York Barn Cat to the very bone.

I haven’t yet slugged one of these people who look at me with faux-stricken eyes. I’m not dead yet, but I hope I do smack one of them before it’s my turn to go.

They seem puzzled, almost disappointed that I’m not hours away from death. They never ask me about my work, interests, or thoughts. It feels like I’m already dead to them. The odd thing is that I am.

I admit that it hurts, but it also pisses me off. Every day north of Florida seems like a giant victory for me, and it is. I know I’m a freak and have always been an outsider. I have always admired Woody Guthrie for choosing to die in New Jersey or Franklin Roosevelt dying in his girlfriend’s arms in upstate New York.

I wouldn’t take it that far. I lived in New Jersey once, and it was the only thing that could drive me to Florida.  I plan on dying on Bedlam Farm, where I belong with the other strange creatures who live there, the loving oddballs of the animal world; we get one another.

I’m not going to die in a camper near the Georgia swamp parks or in Sunny Mexico, either.

I do laugh at the look of me when I am swaddled in boots, heavy jeans, and furry jackets. I don’t quite make it as an Arctic Survivor, but if you are old and want to go out for dinner, you must look ridiculous in all of the clothes and zippers and adding. I can’t look like an Arctic explorer anymore and pull it off. I can live here, but I have to agree that it seems ridiculous.

Strangely, there is no more beautiful place for me to be than rushing outside to get a lovely photo of the Winter pasture, sitting with a new book, Maria next to me, Zinnia at my feet, the wood stove cracking off to the side, the sheep baaahing for food, and the donkeys braying.

After years of flailing about and moving, I finally got home. That’s where I plan to die.

Those things are unique, precious gifts of the cold.

Every winter, the cold gives me one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received: warmth inside and out.