Mather

Nobody had been on the ice for a week, maybe two — except for us. We were on the ice every day. (That) morning the ice was fine. The overnight temperature dipped to –6 Celcius, and the ice was hard as a rock. OK — hard as a soft rock.

We ski along a lovely forest trail two kilometres to where the sugar maples grow. As I climb the last, long winding hill to the sugar bush, I can hear water rushing along under the snow. Here and there the stream has washed the trail away.

I was just tidying up the snow I’d shoved from the roof when I heard an unusual sound in the bush just across the little bay. Sort of a crunsch, crunsch, crunsch. Or was it scrisch, scrisch, scrisch? I stopped to listen more carefully.

I first read about making snow angels in a little book on cross-country skiing nearly 30 years ago. Not just any old kind of snow angels — this book described jumping naked into the snow after a sauna.

The moment I stepped onto the dock one hot June day, nearly 40 years ago, I knew I had come home. The lake, the forest, the little log cabin, the blueberries, the quiet — this is where I wanted to live. It took a while to make that dream come true.

It rarely gets really dark in winter. The blanket of whiteness that covers the ground reflects every bit of light that comes from the sky. Even on a moonless, overcast night, enough starlight leaks through the clouds to help me find my way.

Living in the bush in the winter is definitely more of a challenge than in summer. No, it is not the moonlit trips to the outhouse that make winter life so difficult.

Ah, December. A month of changes, a month of anticipation, wonder and excitement. Here in the forest, December’s changes are eagerly awaited, and solemnly anticipated. For us, the changes are radical.

Long ago and far away, I immersed myself in art classes at the local community college. In one semester I took sculpture, etching, photography, drawing and pottery. It was great.

Last spring I was in to visit one of our local solar energy suppliers.