Story of the Week

David Kline is the author of Great Possessions: An Amish Farmer’s Journal; The Round of a Country Year: A Farmer’s Day Book; Scratching the Woodchuck: Nature on an Amish Farm; and Letters from Larksong: An Amish Naturalist Explores His Organic Farm. With horses and the help of his family and friends, he practices diversified sustainable farming on 120 acres of land in the Amish community of Fredericksburg, Ohio.

A Winter Walk

An Essay

by David Kline

It snowed the night before last and ended yesterday around noon. Now a pure white blanket four inches deep covers the countryside. After breakfast I set out to see what my wild neighbors have been up to.

Few things are so exhilarating as a winter walk when the temperature is in the teens or low twenties. There’s enough bite in the air to keep you wanting to move and yet not enough cold to cause discomfort, and many creatures will have written a tale in the snow with their tracks. Ernest Thompson Seton called the animal tracks “the oldest known writing on earth.”

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