Linda DuCharme

A week ago, as I returned from my daily walk, I announced that I had never been so cold in my life. Well, there was the time I stood by a ski slope in gale winds at –25°.

The earlier, nicer stages, which we passed some time ago, involve the great feeling of bundling up.

In spite of my current crabbing, I prefer Vermont weather. There’s a little bit of everything but rarely to the extreme.

Huge chunks of ice form on the roof and thunder down to the just-shoveled deck; luckily the icicle daggers have missed me, so far.

After a few moments of blaming each other for being the culprit who left the burner on, we settled into discussing how much it had just cost us to burn fuel oil for two minutes in August. It was certainly not part of our carefully crafted plan for the coming winter.

One of the sure signs of spring around this time of year, is the large black spider who lives under our bathtub during the cold winter months.

In my youth I loved snowstorms. My parents moaned, “Oh, no, more snow. We have to shovel and plow and fall down on the ice!” And I thought, “What is their problem? The snow is beautiful, and the predictions are for 12 inches tonight. How wonderful is that?”

We’ve done all the cute winter things: sitting by a roaring fire, sipping hot cider, shoveling snow off the deck. These things have their time and place, both of which were months ago.

We did something I hadn’t remembered doing since child hood: We hung a blanket at the bottom of the stairs to keep what little heat we had from being wasted on the upstairs. We drew curtains wherever they hung. We burned six cords of wood and a tank of oil.

I remember the first snows of my childhood when some cranky adult had to announce, “It won’t stick,” as soon as all the kids in our house were squealing with joy at the first flakes.

I think the rule is you don’t turn on the heat until October, or maybe even November.

I used to thrill at the sound of the Canada geese suddenly appearing in the sky, honking like New York taxi drivers as they headed south.