And it's still only January?

OK, I've had enough of this freezing weather. There's no point in trying to enjoy a bucolic life in a winter that's as surprisingly evil as this one. It's too cold outside to do any pruning or cutting back, much less think about cleaning out the cantina. The wood's all chopped and ready for use and other than that, who cares? Although many of my friends and neighbors are heading even further north to happily stagger through drifts of snow and develop bright red cheeks and noses, I just want to hug the fireplace. I don't ski, skate or find any thrill in careening around corners in a flat-bottomed boat. I don't even like hiking around on hills covered with slippery leaves that hide the loose rocks and wild boar holes so easily avoided in good weather.

We had some 24-hour snow in Todi last month and I took the same series of photos I take every time it turns white outside. There's the one of the garage, the panorama of the Umbrian hills, the tall cypress in the driveway and the close-by firewood hutch. The pictures are the same year after year because I refuse to put on yet more layers of outerwear plus lace-up boots and crunch around the property in search of the perfect snow-laden tree. No, these four shots are available from various windows and I have plenty to send out whether a massive five inches fall or there's merely an early-morning dusting. Nobody looks at them anyway, so why bother taking more? I'll just label them by depth and email them according to the latest precipitation.

My streaming choice is Classical Minnesota Public Radio because their weather is always worse than ours. The frequent temperature updates help me to put our latitude into perspective and remember how really awful it is in the Midwest and Northeast at this time of year. At least the small amount of snow we receive generally melts in a couple of days and doesn't hang around like black lava until the middle of March. We left our snow shovel in New York 22 years ago and now my only step-cleaning measure is to toss handsful of granular fertilizer out the front door. Works just as fast as salt and doesn't kill the grass or leave any marks behind. Try it.