The Quiet Season

 

On this wintery day here is something from my book, The Quiet Season:

 Winter is

a quiet season, when nature rests:

the trees and the grasses,

the wildflowers and the birds,

the animals and the pond creatures.

Winter is a time for endings and a time for beginnings.

A time to regroup and a time to reconsider.

A time to reflect and a time to revise.

A time to evaluate and a time to plan for the morrow.

Winter is a season of great beauty,

blacks and whites and grays

and a sprinkling of green from the pines,

the firs and the spruces that dot the northern regions.

Winter is a season of subtle shapes with few sharp edges

as snow blankets the land with a soft and curving cover.

Winter is a season of subtle sounds:

the almost imperceptible sound of snowflakes falling,

the rustling of bare tree branches caressed by a winter breeze,

the quiet dripping of meltwater from a farmhouse roof.

Winter is a time to listen for the silence,

when the cold tightens its grip,

turning breath into clouds and thickening the ice on the lakes,

when snow cover muffles all sound.

Winter is like a great river,

always the same but constantly changing,

each winter resembling the one before,

but each like no other.

Winter is a season that demands respect,

insists on it.

It is a season that refuses to be ignored.

Winter is a season that never leaves us.

It is forever a part of who we are,

what we believe and what we value,

and how we see the world.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Winter is so much more than snow and cold.

 

UPCOMING EVENT: Sunday, February 21.

 Register now for PBS Wisconsin’s Garden & Landscape Expo (Feb. 20-21) Natasha  Kassulke and I will be sharing “Setting the Stage for Successful Gardening” from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 21.

Register Wisconsin Garden & Landscape Expo (wigardenexpo.com)

 

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

To purchase Jerry’s books, including The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters, go to your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org