January 5, 2001

     Minnesota Winter

All nature is beautiful in its time.  Winter in Minnesota is made up of distinctive wonders, scenes and experiences.  Wonders include the cheerful chickadees and nuthatches at our feeders, those incredibly intricate snowflakes in their sixfold crystal patterns, and animal sounds that seem closer and more intense in the cold air.

Scenes include the morning sunlight shining on a row of sugar maples covered with layers of white frost, the snow on evergreen boughs, or steam fog rising from open-water patches of the Mississippi River.

Experiences include snowshoeing under a full moon when the ethereal landscape makes the solitude seem deeper and whiter, standing under a strong red oak and listening to the still-attached leaves rustling in the wind with sounds of a summer rainfall, and stepping out into one's neighborhood just after a new snowfall of several inches has covered the imperfections and cleaned the air.