It’s a bright, clear morning. Funny how after only 3 weeks here, 20 degrees starts to feel like a comfortable temperature for 8am. Today is going to be another warm one–the third day in a row of 55 degree high temperatures in the beginning of February. By the afternoon the very top of the ground will become pliable. But now the ground is silver, each blade of grace and broken stalk crocheted with frost. It crunches softly underfoot, like tissue paper.

Mac and I are starting to weave walking trails around the house in all directions. Today we start in the side meadow, following the road from above. We climb the rolling hills and valleys of the meadow until we reach the tree line at the top of the pasture. From there we walk along the edge of the woods, screened from view by the pine trees, thin and knobby.

We reach the spring at the corner of the pasture, where a layer of water has frozen over the ground, so slick that you can tell deer have bounded through and slipped and scrambled to regain their footing. We drop into the woods behind the pond after that, walking straight down the hill–Mac goes tumbling past me. He hasn’t quite figured out how to put the brakes on, but when he reaches the bottom he patiently waits, panting, eyes alight. We walk along a much-used deer path that circles the back pond. When the sun warms this ground it will be muddy, but we glide over the hardened ruts for now, the deep gray blue of the frozen pond to our left. We follow the bank of the pond and cross the stream where water from the upper pond falls to the lower pond. It makes a delicate, crystalline tinkling as it tumbles over icy rocks.

We emerge on the far end of the side lawn, and Mac takes off across the grass, green even now. When we reach the house I sit on the porch steps while Mac runs in figure eights at my feet. He barks once and his tiny puppy voice bounces back at him from the mountain. He jumps and stares. He barks again and the mountain echoes his voice, sending it out across the valley. He does it again and again, and I think about all of the sounds this land has echoed, in my time and in yours.