We woke this morning to snow on the ground but not in the air and I know exactly where we will walk. By the time I make it outside with Mac, great puffs are falling from tree branches in the soft wind and floating to the ground, leaving marks in the snow that look very much like deer tracks.

We cross the road at the driveway, walking until we find a narrow, shifting gap in the tall grass. We slide our way down a short, steep embankment and stop to look out over the lower fields. They slope gently away from us, a valley of burnished grass carved by the sharp bends of a serpentine river–Wharton Creek, they call it. Just yesterday this field was a uniform swath of hip-high stalks but today I find what I was looking for: a delicate web of deer paths, outlined in snow.

I head straight to the giant oak by the river, where the the smooth water starts to ripple and sing. This summer Oli laid a metal ladder across it and a few of us tip toed over to explore the marshes and pine forests. The grass was green then, and full of prickers. They skimmed across my bare legs leaving behind swollen stripes of skin. I knew better than to hike in shorts, but later I admired my cuts and bruises–I think that was the day I knew we had to live here.

Now the water is the color of liquid stone and rushes strongly past, skipping over smooth egg-shaped river rocks a few inches below the surface. Mac walks up to the bank and peers down at the water. My stomach flips as I imagine him tumbling over the edge and floating briskly down the river.  “You’re making me nervous,” I say out loud. I’m reminded of something Grandpa told me at Ian’s wedding; that when he was a boy these waters would sometimes rise in an instant, with no warning, stranding a single frantic cow on the other side.

As I stand here now, snowflakes gathering on the tips of my hair, the dark river below, I can imagine that lonely cow on the other side of the bank, calling to her friends.