We had our first snow of the season. I glanced out the window and saw trees and houses through a fine, white veil. It didn't stick. Not even to the grass. So fine were the snowflakes -- more like dust motes -- that I didn't spot a single flake dissolve against the black tar on the sunporch roof.

In a couple of minutes the air had cleared. If I hadn't looked away from my monitor exactly when I did, I would have missed it. Nevertheless the snow has returned. Between now and April it will be lurking out there, a constant threat to close the roads -- to drift across the grassy hill leading up to the precipitous right-of-way that drops down to the roads -- and keep us away from the grocery and the post office.

We stop making appointments after Thanksgiving.

The winter supplies are all in. There are more tins of soup and vegetables than we can possibly eat, plenty of rice and potatos. There will be days when we had hoped to get out but we have to change our plans. Aggravating days. But there will be other times when the snow covers the landscape in silence and we will be perfectly content to feel sealed off from the world with no need to go anywhere.