and snows. and snows. 

It has been relentless.  Most years, we have a much needed January thaw.  Despite any icy inconvenience, I look forward to it.  It clears the deck, so to speak.  Better, it melts snow from the roofs (thereby partially alleviating the worry or collapse), crusts the top of snow that is left behind making it easier to walk upon and of course lessens the depths that the animals must dig through to find food. In a good year, the driveway gets cleared without turning into a mini mud season. But, that isn't where I'm going with this.  Back up to the part about the animals.

This is the first year that I have had turkeys, everyday, in the yard, searching for food.  There are 37 of them.  I'm impressed.  I'd never given much thought to turkeys.  After each snowfall, I see them work their way through the deep snow.  The trails that they've made in the woods are so well packed that I can walk on them without breaking through.  Such work has it's rewards.  150 lbs of reward so far.  Another fifty pounds of seed is presently 'stored' in the back of the car doing double duty as ballast.  I had wondered what they do when someone isn't lugging buckets of seed out to them?  This year I know, they dig.  They also balance in my holly bushes pecking at berries that I would have thought were poison.  Apparently not for them, the count remains at 37 a week later.

I went to a spinning retreat on the coast a week or so ago.  There wasn't much snow on the ground.  Such a relief.  I decided to take a walk along the water and back through the woods.  Even at 7F, it felt like a kinder climate.  

So many places to live..

Seriously, this was off a wooded trail.  I laughed.  

Neither the deer nor the birds had bothered these.    

The forecast is for another 10 inches, with ice.