As a child growing up Adirondack, it seemed like winter came earlier to Limekiln Lake every year.
This year the first day of winter is December 21, but as in previous years it seems the calendar is way behind what we experience in our Adirondack forest.
The woods seem to usher in snows and frost almost two months ahead of the appointed date. I guessed it had to be winter because that was what winter looked like to everyone else.
Children bundled in layers wearing wool hats and mittens. Snowmen built in the front yard and toboggans in the back yard. Bare branches and frosty mornings with snow-covered ground…they are all part of our November winter.
The air and wet snow feels cold, while hands feel snug wrapped around a warm cup of cocoa.
The smooth surface of an icicle and the feeling of snowflakes falling and melting in an unmittened hand. The way the sun hurts your eyes when it peeks out from a cloud.
A dry and icy wind so cutting that it sends goose bumps to even the most covered places on your body.
Then there is the taste of winter. The way oatmeal, eggnog, and gingerbread cookies taste so much better on a cold day.
How much better a toasted cheese dunked in hot soup tastes when you’re sitting at the kitchen table, dangling your wool sock-covered feet over a bare wood floor.
But the smells are my favorite part of winter. Wood smoke as it curls up from the edge of the stove and sneaks into a room with a sudden gust of wind.
The almost overwhelming scent of pine as it pushes past the dormant smells of the forest.
Wet wool as it dries next to the wood stove. And the smell of any food cooking in the kitchen that beckons a feeling of warmth and safety from the raging winter outside.
Most folks also like to talk about the sounds of winter.
There are a few that are distinct to me, such as the rumble and rattle of the plow truck as it scrapes along the road surface when it passes the house.
The chatter of an ice scraper on the windshield of the car or the rough scraping of a snow shovel clearing a path.
The far-off rumble of my neighbor’s snowblower reminds me that I am not alone.
But my favorite is the sound of icicles dripping from the eaves and the chirping of winter birds on a quiet grey day.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller,
lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com