<p style="margin-left:.5in;">
	<em><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Winter Creek Pano.jpg" style="width: 188px; height: 250px; float: right;" />I wonder how long it would take you to notice the regular recurrence of the seasons if you were the first man on earth.&nbsp; What would it be like to live in open-ended time broken only by days and nights?&nbsp; You could say, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s cold again; it was cold before,&rdquo; but you couldn&rsquo;t make the key connection and say, &ldquo;it was cold this time last year,&rdquo; because the notion of &ldquo;year&rdquo; is precisely the one you lack.&nbsp; Assuming that you hadn&rsquo;t yet noticed any orderly progression of heavenly bodies, how long would you have to live on earth before you could feel with any assurance that any one particular long period of cold would, in fact, end?</em></p>
<p>
	This excerpt from Annie Dillard&rsquo;s classic <em>Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</em>, always comes to mind this time of year as winter persists.&nbsp; I think of the animals, those hibernating eager to emerge from their dormancy unaware (mostly) of what their animal brethren have been up to the for the previous 4 months.&nbsp; I think too of those hearty critters that brave the winter head on staying active.&nbsp; How terrifyingly difficult it would be to survive day in and day out with scant resources.&nbsp; All the while knowing that, even if you survive this winter, you&rsquo;ll have to do it again the following year, and the year after that.&nbsp; How many winters could you last? How long could you endure? &nbsp;</p>
