It’s still dark as I lumber down the stairs into the living room where the woodstove remains warm. I’m wearing a bright yellow, long-sleeve t-shirt with a brook trout emblazoned across the back and my flannel jeans, the pair purchased from L.L. Bean the year before Emily, our college-age daughter, was born. Stained and frayed, the jeans still keep me warm on a winter morning like this one.

The dogs drag themselves from their dreams. Moose, the younger one, noses my leg, tail wagging his hindquarters, thoughts of food on his mind. Magalloway, named after a favorite river in western Maine, and about as old as a big black Labrador can expect to live, opens one eye, swishes his tail once, then snuggles back down on the couch. The white hair lining the old dog’s muzzle reminds me of the stunted trees at the top of Bosebuck Mountain after a November snow shower.

As I attempt to zip up gaiters around my boots, the two dogs mill around my legs, the younger one licking my fingers, the older nibbling at my sleeve. After feeding them, I slide a hooded sweatshirt over my head and reach toward the rack by the side of the door, grabbing my work gloves and cap, the one with the oil stain surrounding the letters that spell out Oquossoc Marine across the front.

Down on one knee, I sweep the ashes through the grate of the woodstove and remove the tray. Outside, night has reluctantly receded, leaving only its brightest stars. The sun, although yet to rise, has brightened the sky above the blue spruce line that separates our snow-covered lawn from the lower field, a field we have allowed to remain fallow. A wild grape vine, thick as rope, twists around the trunk of a white oak that grows tall from the center of the unkempt landscape. The grape’s fruit is withered, its leaves gone. Virginia creeper has followed the grape’s ascent, spreading upward through the oak’s canopy. It was only last month that the leaves of the clinging vine turned brilliant scarlet before slipping soundlessly through the limbs of the tall tree. Wild roses and barberry bushes spread outward through the field. Their prickly branches, somber and gray, droop toward the frozen ground.

My legs nearly buckle when Moose bumps me from behind, his back legs sliding out in all directions on the slippery walk. Mags, taking a tentative step onto the icy slate, looks up as if to say, I’m getting too old for this.

The birds are awake, stirring from their nighttime roosts, a few chatter from the branches of a nearby dogwood. A tiny wren complains from among the shriveled leaves of the rhododendron that has spread wide since that afternoon more than twenty years ago when Trish and I planted it by our front door. From farther back in the woods, a crow caws once, twice, three times before another takes up the refrain.

The ground crunches under my boots, the snow frozen. My nostrils sting from the cold air as I walk across the hard-packed surface. The air is still, and the ash settles without blowing back in my face as I lower the tray toward the gray mound behind the lean-to where our wood is stored. Beside the lean-to is a small shed. Inside, I set the tray on a shelf and remove a metal bucket from a nail, filling it with sunflower hearts scooped from a plastic bin. With the dogs following at my heels, I fill the various feeders that hang from metal posts around the property, replace the water in the heated birdbath, and add a suet cake to the metal cage nailed to a maple tree.

By the time I trudge back through the snow, chickadees are flying back and forth, their undulating flight patterns crisscrossing the yard. I open another bin, filling the bucket with cracked corn. Removing a knife from the sheath above the shed window, I cut up a few apples and a small pumpkin, adding the pieces to the corn. A local farm provided the apples, which are left over from making cider, the pumpkins donated by neighbors after Halloween.

I scatter pumpkin, apple and corn kernels across the earthen dam of the little icebound pond that lies between our yard and woodlot. The crows milling in the trees above me descend as soon as I turn my back. Returning to the shed, I hang the bucket on a nail and pile kindling atop the empty ashtray, carrying it toward the house.

It takes four trips to the lean-to to fill the metal frame beside the woodstove. Arranging cardboard and crumpled newspaper under four or five sticks of kindling to form a teepee of combustible material, I smell the sulfur as the match strikes the side of the blue, red, and yellow box. It takes a minute or two for the fire to take hold, but when it does; I add a few larger logs and close the doors of the stove.

As the warmth from the cast iron begins to spread through the room, I change into regular jeans, removing my gaiters and boots as the dogs settle in. Padding into the den in my wool socks, I turn on the laptop. Looking out the window, I hope to spot the small herd of deer that swings by once or twice each day, or perhaps the flock of thirty or more turkeys that came together this fall.

A female cardinal takes refuge in a red cedar only a few feet from the window. Her mate soon follows, the male’s scarlet and black plumage in brilliant contrast with those of the female’s more muted orange and olive feathers.

The cardinals seek quieter surroundings when a mixed flock of songbirds arrive. Like a rowdy crowd of Times Square revelers, chickadees and titmice flutter among the evergreen branches, accompanied by a number of finches, both gold and red. I count at least two downy woodpeckers among the partygoers. But it’s a nuthatch that catches my attention, with its black-and-white head and gray shoulders every bit as formal as Fred Astaire in hat, tails and cane. As the little bird tap dances up the trunk of the cedar, I am reminded that the new year will soon be upon us, and I’ve yet to begin my winter essay for Wolf Moon Journal.

With a sigh, I stare at the empty screen, and after a long moment, begin pecking at the keyboard. The letters M O R N I N G appear, followed by a space and then the letters C H O R E S. Looking out the window, I notice that the sky has turned ashen.

Perhaps it will snow again.

Robert J. Romano Jr. lives in the northwest corner of New Jersey with his wife, Trish, their daughter, Emily, and two Labrador retrievers, Magalloway and Moose. They own a camp in the Rangeley Lakes Region of Maine, where they spend much of their time. Romano’s first novel, North of Easie, has just been published by Birch Brook Press. For more information visit his website: forgottentrout.com