Spring, summer, and autumn are generous in their lush colors and forms, but winter is more demanding: Its colors are subtler, and its light is less exuberant.

Most days in winter, I awake in a skyshell that blushes around the horizons, highlighting the bare, inky skeletons of the trees atop the ridges. Of course, the rose fades into cerulean with a band of gold above that on a sunny day. So it was a surprise to wake to a Dawn whose rosy fingers had paled. I sat up, and saw that the world had been tucked into a glittering, fluffy blanket of down from heavenly geese. The feeder was buzzing with nuthatches and titmice in aerial ballets with the chickadees. After our protracted Indian summer (delightful, but frightening in its testimony to global warming), winter had finally arrived!

Enjoy this time of rest and renewal!