Winter Thoughts

LEBANON, OH -- It’s late January in Warren County. Snow has covered the lawn for more than three weeks. The furnace is getting little rest, and neither is the fireplace. Wildlife has had to alter their eating habits to make it through this cold stretch. 

A winter survivor

The Robin isn’t finding his favorite morsel, the earthworm. Instead he has had to develop a taste for suet and sunflower seed at my feeding station. I can’t remember seeing that before.

Robin stops and nibbles some suet

Likewise, the Eastern Bluebird stops by the feeders once in a while because his favorite insects, fruits and berries are nowhere to be found now. And the rabbit has had to nibble on the dry stems of Goldenrod and Multiflora Rose because my vegetable and flower gardens don’t provide the goodies he liked to dine on during the growing season.

Eastern Bluebird stops by for a bite

I haven’t been driving the county backroads enjoying the rural scenery and watching for a deer. Those roads are the last to get attention from the plows and salt trucks, and I don’t want to risk doing anything stupid like sliding into a ditch. Instead, I have spent a little time contemplating how others feel about winter so I can tell if I’m on the same page with most people. With a bit of web browsing, I found some quotes that I am sharing here with credit to their authors.

• “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”

― Edith Sitwell

• “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”

― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America 

• “Nothing burns like the cold.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

• “Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

― Yoko Ono

• “My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

• “Snow was falling, so much like stars, filling the dark trees, that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness.”

― Mary Oliver

• “A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter.”

― Patricia Briggs, Dragon Blood

• “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

― Anne Bradstreet, The Works of Anne Bradstreet

• “Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.”

― Sara Raasch, Snow Like Ashes

• “The heart can get really cold if all you've known is winter.”

― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

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