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Neighbor’s tree, basking in the street light.

And yet another snow day. Or night, in this case. Up to six inches by morning, which really isn’t that much… but here in MD it’s enough to shut down the state for a day.

In my early twenties I worked for my uncle doing home construction. One of the projects he started just as I was moving on into the restaurant business was renovating an old farm house built in the 1890s in Hanover, PA. Some years later I visited a nearby relative, saw the house and fell in love with it.

The original structure remained with a tastefully done 2/3s addition. The home was situated on 3 acres with federally protected wetlands behind it, included three out buildings and was filled with antiques collected by my uncle. It was gorgeous. L and I looked into purchasing it —fully furnished with all those antiques— but the cost would have necessitated two salaries, and L was looking to have children.

I often think of that old place, it’s isolation and solitude, and find that I’m still scheming a way to get into it… somehow. I especially think of it on these cold, snowy days when a hundred+ year old fireplace crackling with life between two, tall formica windows spilling out into the falling snow, nothing but woods in the background would really hit the spot.