It’s an oatmeal-for-breakfast kind of morning.

You know what I’m talking about—a cold sun rising over week-old snow still five inches deep, single-digit temperatures with no relief in sight for the next nine days, and morning chores that won’t take care of themselves. I layer up, boot up and carry two gallon jugs of water (one hot, one room temp) to the “downstairs” chickens in the new coop. Of course their waterer is frozen solid almost right to the top, leaving less than an inch of headspace for fresh water. It’s an old metal restaurant buffet steam pan, so I’m thinking if I flip it over and pour the hot water on the outside, it will release the chunk of ice. It works (I’m a genius!), I refill the pan halfway from the gallon of room temp water and prop their coop door open enough for the sun to give them some cheering light. Onto the “upstairs” chicken, who lives in one of the old but still-sturdy rabbit hutches and then a quick stop at the bird feeders where the bluejays are bullies and the mourning doves look so motherly among the towhees and black caps.

Back inside, unlayered to just enough to clothes that will keep me warm without having to turn up the heat much past 65 degrees, I haul out the navy blue Tupperware canister of rolled oats (most likely an auction find, and probably from the 80’s. The canister, not the oats) and start building a meal that will stick to my ribs if I do it right. Not quick-cooking oats or those flimsy namby-pamby single-serving packets, no ma’am. Today’s weather calls for the heavy duty variety, and I load them up with small wedges of Gala apples, two thick clots of almond butter, coconut sugar, cinnamon and real butter. Haven’t even stirred it yet and I have to chase a stray dog away from the ridge where I tossed a couple of slider buns from the package my sister Peggy gave me yesterday (Bumper, the youngest kitten, has already scrambled his way to the top of a maple in the sitting area out back). In one bite, the stray mouthed them down like marshmallows and snuffled around in the snow for more. For that quick dash outside, my sweatshirt and rain boots that I keep on the front porch are enough. I holler, the dog runs down the driveway, and now it’s time to eat. Some days ‘round here, you really earn your breakfast.

When we first saw and fell in love with this place and never ever wanted to leave it, not even for groceries, Patrick and I tried on a few plans for what do when we became feeble and in need of care. Ideally, hiring in help would top the list of options, but that’s money right there, so best to have a few back-up ideas in case that Mega Millions doesn’t come our way. Nursing home? Geez, I hope not (and this was waaaay pre-pandemic, mind you). Neither of us can bear the thought of being apart. Niece or nephew in the guestroom? Perhaps (we’ve already started grooming and sweet-talking a couple of them). But the simplest option is this: when my decline is clear, imminent and irreversible, wrap me up in a blanket, put me out in the field and the Creator and I will take care of it from there. We laughed nervously at the prospect, and the logistics are still a bit blurry around the edges (not to mention the legal ramifications for whichever one of us is doing the wrapping and dragging into the field). But if you’ve ever fallen asleep outside on the grass in early summer, or on top of a soft bed of fragrant fallen pine needles in mid-October with the mid-autumn sun filtering through the branches, you know no skilled facility with all of its highly-trained medical staff and daily activities could even come close.

Still, as we grow farther away from our thirties (and forties, and…ok, fifties), we test our physical limits and reimagine our plans to stay here until we die. A few weeks ago, in one of those first magical and deep heavy snowfalls that covered everything, I headed out for my morning walk around the seventeen acre section of field, all romantic and starry-eyed. The scene around me was a full distraction of gorgeousness, and I fell for it, not even registering the effort it would take to get me around the paths and eventually back inside for oatmeal and hot tea. I had to lift my boot-clad feet for every step, marching and pushing through the drifts, my heart rate thumping from the exertion and I wasn’t even to the Hill yet. By the time I got to the middle of the cut path in the field by the woods, I was tired and unsure I’d be able to finish. My starry eyes widened with the realization that respect rather than romance was the better inner posture to take; there were still acres to go. For the first time in my life, walking this land stirred up fear instead of peace. I am still unsettled by it. I dug deep and kept marching, more attentive to my heartbeat than I can ever recall being.

With the week unfolding into a long deep freeze across our place and much of the nation, I’ve kept that respect-over-romance approach right in front of my red-cheeked face where I can see it and feel it. I’m not ready to be wrapped up and set to Rest on the frozen ground. Not just because I feel that I’m still far too young to make my exit—that’s part of it, certainly. And my heart health is fine, truly. But I learned something profound and indelible in that morning snow-walk moment that needs a bit more application to the evolving relationship we have with the land. She’s not a playground or petting zoo. She’s a true force of nature that beckons us beyond our comfortable couch to show us who’s still in charge. If we want to be here well into our winter years, it’s a necessary truth to accept and assimilate at a cellular level. For one day, our cells and hers will become indistinguishable from one another, and I want to go out feeling as if I understood that, even for a moment.