It snowed a lot.

Meanwhile, I stayed inside designing wearable mermaid tails for 13″ dolls.

Akiva’s favorite toy is the snow shovel.

It is cold again. We go to the farm.

It is very, very cold.

A baby goat peeks cautiously around the corner at the not-so-warming sunshine.

The goat makes Akiva nervous.

Iris pushes Akiva on the swing.

She is getting a bit large to fit in the baby swing herself.

This is how it is all winter: cold, hot. Cold, hot.

Every time it snows,

the sun comes around a couple days later with its big yellow face

and melts everything to puddles.

All winter long.

(Look! A stick!)

The first new baby goats were born at New Village Farm.

A little boy led us inside the manger.

Light beaming from the heavens illuminated the holy kids.

We have been waiting all winter for the confluence of cold and snow that we might hike down the LaPlatte River. Today, one day, they come together. My friend Ali and I pull sleds of children across wet, sticky snow. “How far should we go?” she asks. “Until we have to turn around,” I reply. After some time, wet overcomes snow and heat overcomes cold. My snowshoe breaks through the ice of the river. “It is time to turn around,” I say, gazing at the wet hot cold ice water snow river snaking on before me. I pull my leg out of the river. This is as far as we make it this year. The river has not been frozen enough to travel to the bay since the year Iris was two.

We had an ICE STORM.

Ice covered EVERYTHING—

every single blade of grass that poked its tip out of the crusted snow.

Boughs bent slowly down.

Icicles followed, curving toward the ground.

Iris felt the weight of ice that pained the plants.

Futilely, she tried to relieve them of their burden.

She was sad she could not help them.

I tried to distract her with beauty.

But all she could think about was pain.

When someone finally stops talking about something,

how do we know whether or not they are still thinking about it?

Umbels!

And grids.

This is our woods.

The most beautiful place.

These are my children.

I took them out into the ice storm as great branches cracked and tumbled to the ground.