solstice

Ponds frozen over. Sound of the snowplow. Yesterday was the winter solstice. The days will start to get longer now.

It is in midwinter that I sometimes glean from my pines something more than woodlot politics, and the news of the wind and weather. This is especially likely to happen on some gloomy evening when the snow has buried all irrelevant detail, and the hush of elemental sadness lies heavy upon every living thing. Nevertheless, my pines, each with his burden of snow, are standing ramrod-straight, rank upon rank, and in the dusk beyond I sense the presence of hundreds more. At such times I feel a curious transfusion of courage.

December
A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold