Water drifts slowly by snow-edged riversides, bare trees gently moving overhead, reaching toward blue, cloudless skies. One tree, victim of recent high winds, has snapped about 12 feet up the trunk, with its top resting among its companions over the stream separating our cottage from the Umbagog Wildlife Center. Another tree lies on the ground behind the center, presumably having fallen in that same strong wind.
The snow is greatly diminished but still holds its own where the plow has banked it to form a wall, a barricade between us and the dock where in a few months our pontoon boat will sit ready to carry us down the Magalloway to Lake Umbagog. For now, we can only sit on the deck and admire the water, still too cold even for a kayak trip, but miraculously free of ice. Downstream, the river is impassible from ice-pack and debris including a long log lying crosswise as another barrier to navigation.
We wish the snow would just disappear, but in the afternoon sunlight its crusty surface sparkles with millions of tiny reflections, reminding us that even the most unwelcome of nature’s gifts can deliver joy.
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