“In our latitude we know that each year brings the time when not only the candle but the hearth fire must burn at both ends of the day, symbol not of waste but of warmth and comfort. It is for this time, if we live close to the land, that we lay up the firewood and the fodder. Now we pay for the long days of Summer, pay in the simple currency of daylight.  Hour for hour, the accounts are now balanced.”
~Hal Borland, This Hill, This Valley

In Maine, in December, the accounts are certainly balanced when it comes to daylight. By 4:30 p.m., it is fairly dark. By 5:30 p.m., it is as dark as midnight. This is the time of year when we hurry to take the dog for his afternoon walk—no later than 3:00 p.m.

But as Hal Borland points out in his beautifully written This Hill, This Valley, “[T]he short days provide their own bonus. The snows come, and dusk and dawn are like no other time of the year.”

At the little house in the big woods, all is cozy when night falls by late afternoon. The wood furnace is going, and there is no more comfortable heat than wood heat. Although we have back-up, wood is our primary source of heat. It is indeed a lot of work to stack and haul wood, but Clif, who does all of the stacking and hauling, thinks it is more than worthwhile. So do I. Wood heat would not be sustainable everywhere, but in Maine, with its small population of about one million, it is still possible to harvest wood for heating and not destroy the forests.

Around 4:00, we start pulling down the shades. I put on the kettle to boil, and soon we are settled on the couch for tea and snack. Often, I read The New Yorker, and Clif reads on his tablet. The dog nestles beside me, and he hopes he will get an occasional treat.  Need I write that Liam is seldom disappointed?

It takes a while for us to get into this comfortable rhythm. At first, when the time changes, and the days are ever so short, we are restless. Night seems too long. But gradually, we ease into the short days and long nights. While we will not be sorry to see spring, with its longer, warmer days, we also appreciate the time to slow down, to read, to take stock.

This morning, when I got up and pulled the shades in my bedroom, I looked out the window and said, “Oh, my!” Over night, we got a dusting of snow.

“I thought you’d be surprised,” Clif said, and he had the camera ready for me.

Before tea, before toast, out I went to take some pictures. I had purposely left some of the garden ornaments in the yard so that I could get photos of them in the snow.

This angel, I think, will make a good Christmas card with the phrase “Glad Tidings” at the top.

Like this:

The sun is shining, the trees are dripping, and by afternoon the dusting of snow will be gone. Nevertheless, it’s time to bring in the last of those yard ornaments as well as the chairs, the fire pit, and a few other things we left outside.

Winter hasn’t come to Maine yet, but we felt its touch. How good to know the wood is stacked, and the leaves are raked.

Such a mild November we are having. For this whole first week it has been so warm that we’ve needed no heat during the day. Around 6:00 p.m., Clif has started a fire in our wood furnace in the basement, and that has been enough to keep us warm until the next evening.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it is great that we haven’t had to use any type of heat during the day. (As Mainers, we are prepared for the cold and have three sources of heat—electric, propane, and wood. At various times during the year, we use all three.) But this warm November weather is, well, just plain weird and is no doubt the result of climate change.

However, even though I take climate change very seriously, and Clif and I have worked hard to reduce our carbon footprint, I figure I might as well enjoy this warm weather while it is here.  Because paradoxically, climate change has also seemed to bring colder weather in the winter and lots and lots of snow.

In the yard, most of the gardens have been cut back, but a few valiant dwarf snap dragons are still in bloom. I can’t bring myself to pull the plants, and I’ll probably leave them until next spring.

I have begun bringing in the various garden ornaments, but this little creature is still guarding the yard. Soon he will be down cellar with the others.

While many of the trees are bare, and the yard is full of leaves just waiting to be raked, the leaves continue to fall. I was lucky enough to catch this oak leaf before it hit the ground.

While oak leaves do not have the brilliant color of maple leaves, they have their own quiet beauty, especially when they are against a deep blue sky.

Today, if the weather allows—the sky is overcast right now—I’ll rake the lawn around our firepit so that we can have a fire this weekend. On Saturday, Shannon,  Mike,and the dogs will be coming for a visit.

Who knows? We might even gather around the fire and have S’mores.