Seventeen

Day 17.

I woke up this morning not at all cold. It was later in the morning then I care to admit; I had slept on the couch, in front of the television, and the morning news was already coming to an end. Pleasantly surprised that the house still felt warm, I refrained from building a fire in the woodstove. Instead I headed outside with my dog before starting the day’s chores.

Snowflakes were falling as I started a pot of coffee and fed the cats. After throwing in a load of laundry I noticed that the snowflakes had increased in size; I decided to get a fire going. It was a lovely afternoon as the snow fell heavily, covering the deer in white coats as they grazed in the back forest. Everything felt so at peace as I made up the beds in the spare rooms.

Once the last set of laundry was folded, the beds were all made, and the house was good and warm, I went outside before the daylight disappeared. The snow had only accumulated to a couple of inches, but I welcomed it as an opportunity to shovel. The fresh air in my lungs felt revitalizing, and the snow was light enough that I didn’t need to breathe hard. I shoveled an unnecessary amount of the driveway. Unnecessary in that my dad owns a John Deere Tractor that he plows with, and he would be home before the snow got too thick for our four wheel drive vehicles to get through. But I did a good job. And then I shoveled the steps and swept the front porch…and then the back porch. I brushed off my vehicle even though I did not plan on going anywhere. Before I could think of something else to do the sky started to get dark, and not knowing where my dad’s headlamp is kept, I went in for the night.

The snow kept on falling throughout the evening, but my quiet winter wonderland was soon inundated by redheaded twin toddlers. Noisy trucks were hard not to trip over, the contents of a whole toy basket laid strewn upon the living room floor. Every now and then one of them would start clanking on the piano. It didn’t take me long to forget about my beautiful steady flames in the woodstove or the giant flakes whirling around outside like a snow globe. I sat with my sticky fingered nephew on my lap, cheerios stuck to my arm, peeling him a Clementine as I tried to teach him how to say “hockey.” It was a far cry from a few hours ago when the deer were my companions, the snowflakes the fastest thing in sight, and the woodstove the only thing begging for my attention.

After the toddlers headed to bed the adults nestled down in the den. Folk music was playing gently as the large mounted buck head looked down on us. The snowflakes had taken a break, the flames in the woodstove died down, and I felt warmer than I had all day.

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