On an early summer morning, as I make my coffee, I can look out the kitchen window at the garden of the big oaks. On an early winter morning, as I make my coffee, all I see in the kitchen window is the gnarly face of an old man. I prefer seeing the garden of the big oaks. But that’s for another year in another season. These are the short days. The days of darkness and cold.
I had a fire last night, and anyone who lives with true cold would probably call me silly. My temperature was only in the fifties. But after years of staring at a non-drafting fireplace, I now have one where the smoke runs hot and true, and I needed to see a flame in the dark corner and smell the smoke of burning pecan wood. So, I lit the logs, watched the fire, and felt the chill disappear. Then, when everything had run its course, I banked the coals, closed the screen, and went to seek relief and sleep in a soft bed beneath the covers of a good quilt.
