A Beautiful Cold

The horses who live on our country lane somehow looked even more beautiful against the white of the snow that fell last week. Their coats have grown extra lush in the last few months, thickening in response to shortening days. These are the horses of Christmas tales who pull sleds of swaddled people through the woods. Jo March and the like. A few winters ago, we woke up to one of these horses grazing right outside of our window. His unexpected visit was like a Christmas morning from my childhood dreams.

The day before the hard freeze Rich and I woke up early to start a marathon harvest of peppers, tomatoes, beets, kale, swiss chard, watermelon radish, and salad greens that were ripe and ready, or anywhere near it. The carrots can withstand these temperatures harbored in the warmer soil and even benefit from a kiss of cold. A beautiful cold. The temperature gradually dropped throughout the day as we plucked and pulled and topped and washed and packed the cooler full of fall harvest. These are the sort of epic days that remind me of busy nights of restaurant service and then the fledgling days as greenhorns on a farm crew in upstate New York: mass harvesting garlic and hanging it to dry in the eaves of an old dairy barn.

Soon enough the spitting rain transitioned to snow flurry and caught on our eyelashes. Then, wash hoses drained and put up, we slipped into the farmhouse, shedding our outer layers to dry next to the woodstove, lit for its first burn of the season. The wood was cut and seasoned by a friend with lumber to spare. Dry clothes and slippers and bums on the couch, I dug back into my latest Maggie O'Farrell novel and was so immersed that Jack had to call my attention to the snow globe effect that had surreptitiously encompassed the house. He slipped on his Crocs and a coat and entered the scene, an animate figurine cavorting in the snow globe in the palm of the earth.

But he's back in so soon, because a moist transitional snow is a cold snow. A beautiful cold snow that is perhaps best enjoyed under a blanket in a seat by the picture window. And so it was cocoa and coffee and a fire that makes you so snug you could get the chills, and your body fully relaxes, and the pleasure of it makes your eyes heavy.

This cold was beautiful too because it seemed to say to us vegetable farmers,"you did what you could. It's time to breathe more deeply and to let go". The pace is slowed and we can now enjoy the chance of snow showers, when the cold is so beautiful and quiet, unlike anytime during the warm season. You seem to be able to hear for miles across the snow: the quiet of dormancy and stillness. It's time to keep warm and to see people and to eat the veggies you put up for the winter and to sleep in. And to get out with the juncos and the chickadees who make the most of the stillness.

Thank you for reading.

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