Breaking Trail

Reader Contribution by Bethann Weick
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Our shed is the keeper of the seasons: it holds a whole year within its four walls. The tools of warmer weather, the window screens of summer, the extra ball jars for canning time, seasonal clothes, odds & ends of lumber, a chimney brush. The detritus of projects and the components of dreams lay tucked alongside each other in a delicate, tetris-like, storage system.

There are also skis (for Ryan.) And snowshoes (for me).

About mid-December, I took my snowshoes out of the shed. They had been neatly stored under an extra bench, collecting dust and some sawdust and sand that traveled with wind and time.

The first real snowstorm had left almost a foot of powder on the ground: it was time to break trail. A trail from the shed to the cabin, from the cabin to the woodpile, to the compost pile, to the outdoor thermometer on the north side of the apple tree, to the privy… a few laps to each had the snow tamped down. They were now walkable, without snow finding its way up our pant legs or into the tops of our boots.

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