It’s 4 degrees outside and the furnace just kicked on again, cycling the temperature in the living room up to a more comfortable 67. I’m gathering the momentum to suit up and head down to the coop where the water in the repurposed metal steam pan is a miniature skating rink for our fourteen feathered Hans Brinkers. It’ll take a gallon of hot tap water and about 30 seconds to break it loose before I can add another gallon of slightly cooler water. If I had warmer boots, I’d stick around to watch it slowly refreeze but I’ve also got a customer who wants a tray of our new lemon honey rosemary granola. Duty calls.

For the first time since we took on a flock of layers, we’ve got a hardy crew that seems happy to keep us stocked in omelettes and quiches well past November, when most of our previous breeds powered down to take a break from supplying our breakfasts. Not these ladies. They’re averaging five to seven eggs a day, and I’ve found only a couple that were frozen rock-hard and cracked. The rest are buried deep in a nest of pine shavings on the coop floor, some of them even still a little warm (which means they were either just dropped there or we’ve got a broody hen in the flock. I’m fine either way). I tuck them into my coat pockets and as I’m leaving the fenced-in run, remind myself out loud that I’ve got eggs in my pockets, lest I become distracted by some random yard project and start moving tree limbs or pulling down grapevines with enthusiastic vigor. The fridge is beyond capacity for full dozen cartons and I’ve got takers at the office. That’s nice in both directions.

The view through the 67-degree living room windows this morning is deceptive—bright yellow sun and endless blue as the backdrop for the trees on the ridge, but one quick trip to the truck to load up this week’s meager two-bag trash deposit for the bin at the end of the driveway and it’s back inside, boots off and under the blanket on the couch. In the studio, a pile of magazine paper beads rests as evidence of what a house-bound person can accomplish with a guillotine paper cutter, some glue, a 3 1/2-inch framing nail and Deathly Hallows, Part 1 playing in the background. I’m looking for new ways to describe “cozy” as I consider more than a tray of granola on the baking agenda for this afternoon (sprigs of fresh rosemary drying in the dehydrator, lemons scrubbed and waiting on the drainboard to be zested and juiced, olive oil and flake salt on stand-by). Maybe a sausage-and-spinach quiche big enough to yield a couple lunches for the remainder of this four-day work week. Patrick is still asleep; I’ll take his silence as the go-ahead.

I’ve come to embrace and enjoy our evolution into this cold-forced introversion, with just enough socialization to keep us from becoming the crazy old couple that lives way back in the woods, the stuff of neighborhood legend and Halloween hijinks at the hands of our local youth (the ones who take baseball bats to our mailbox at the end of the quarter-mile driveway in the summer under cloak of darkness). For two of the three days on this long holiday weekend, we have braved the cold and crowds at Costco, treated ourselves to a hearty Mexican lunch and are still keeping the idea of going to see “Wonka” this afternoon in our hip pocket. Call it retirement practice or the privileges of being obliged to no one. We are happily agenda-less, even as we watch flocks of overly busy sparrows and black capped chickadees pecking diligently at the frozen suet, embarrassing us with their work ethic. Deep down we know we are a fragile and helpless species in the grand scheme of things and keep our heads in the humbly bowed position as we brush the dry snow off the front porch, wearing enough winter gear to resemble the Michelin Tire mascot.

By the looks of things, we’re in for more single digit temps for the rest of the week (perfect for babysitting a defrosting freezer during one of my work-from-home days). We’ll take them, one blanket, one quiche, one tray of granola at a time.