January 26, 2001

     Peak of Winter

Sometimes a two-day blizzard hits or a large mass of cold Arctic air settles over us and we experience below-zero readings for a week or more.  We could almost believe that a new ice age is arriving.  But the blowing snow and extreme cold eventually is broken by a winter thaw that sends the mercury up into the 40s, melts some of the snow, makes our country roads muddy and helps us think of March.

Winter is more than a season of ice-covered lakes, snowstorms and windchills.  It's the time of awesome frozen elegance broken by the call of a raven or the song of a cardinal.  It is our time to remember winters past, our time to slow down and contemplate the future.

Winter is the dormant bud on a twig, the luna moth cocoon, the common milkweed seed waiting in the meadow.  We have reached the peak of winter and yet the rhythms of the season are readying the Earth for another spring of miracles.

Only those of us who are close to nature during the length of a Minnesota winter can truly appreciate the subtle signs of spring and rejoice in each happening.