I’m told the Farmers Almanac calls for a bad season this year. I believe it.

We get groceries delivered and they had to cancel, too cold to finish the harvest, they said. No potatoes. No celery. No soup to warm our bones tonight.

The walks to the chickens are doable in the frigid mornings, but only because I’m distracted by the beauty of our farm. The cardinal-colored shack that’s broken and stark in the patch of trees. The burn pit that spreads motes of ash to the whispering and broken creek bed. The one lone goose who trails behind. The gravel that shatters around my stomping feet.

The icicles that form on the grill of the old Ford we left neglected all Summer. The battery dead and the paint peeling off the door handle.