I love New England.  I love where I live, with all four seasons King of their own highly irregular weather patterns.  Yesterday it started snowing, continuing through today.   Silent snow falling is strangely otherworldly.  Mother Nature’s coverlet comforting a weary mind. 

My sister cannot abide the cold weather.  A few years ago she went down to central Florida on one of those tours to sell you a home and never looked back.  She physically cannot tolerate the cold.  I miss her.  She is not mesmerized by this weather, she sees it as harshness.  I am under the power of white crystalline flakes.  Looking out my window I can recall sled rides down Front Street, wool pants and mittens so encrusted with snow that they felt like an extra forty pounds on my body and the sound of chains on car tires marking cadence like marching soldiers.

Joy through memory.  We all have that gift.

I asked my grandchildren if they could see Suzy Snowflake today.  They just blankly looked at me for a few seconds then ran to the Hallmark snowmen singing Jingle Bells.  No clue.  Poor Suzy.  Thank goodness for YouTube.  I can watch her in the original black and white commercials that I grew to love each winter as a child.  She was my idol.  A Winter-fairy, all sparkly, riding on that sleigh in the sky and making a snowman, one-two-three!

The photo is my sleeping herb garden covered in a foot of snow.  Birds were swaying in the branches as they foraged for any uneaten seeds.  The little roots of plantain, thyme, French tarragon and nettles in a dormant slumber until next March.  This is the message of nature when it snows.  Rest.  Snuggle up with a book and let the warmth of your hot cocoa cup unthaw your fingers from shoveling.

Take stock at what you harvested from the summer.  All the herbs you dried, or infused with extra-virgin olive oils.  The tinctures you made with glycerin or alcohol.  The salves you made with pure beeswax.  Little gifts locked away in your cabinets for use throughout the next few months. Then the cycle will begin again.

Tags: beeswax, birds, coverlet, dormant, French tarragon, Front Street Weymouth, Hallmark, salve, seeds, Suzy Snowflake, Winter