As if there was any lingering doubt, yesterday’s first snowfall marked a definitive end to the swimming season. And a beginning to the Winter Boot Season.

Sitting in a meeting in Burlington, Vermont, I stare through the window at the clouds pressing low over the slate-hued lake, the snow spitting at first — flake by flake — then sprinkling like a giant basket of milkweed seeds and fluff turned upside down.

Already? I think. Winter? And in my next heartbeat, spring oddly feels not so far off. In January, of course, this will be a different story, our house banked in by snow, my hands longing to sink into the earth.

But for now, there’s just that snow silently drifting into the lake, melting.

I don’t know why it made me happy to see the pond ice over in a day,
turning first hazy, then white.

— Jane Kenyon

Pre-snow! Calais, Vermont