Winter with thunder

 Winter arrived Dec. 10. The Wise Woman is a gardener and watches the weather. She knew a big cold front was coming, and we went into the forest at Panola Mountain to see it blow through.

We bundled up. She has a yellow foul-weather hat, the kind that you see in old pictures of New England fishermen. 

We walked until the big dog, sensing the front, told us it was time to turn around. The wind was at our backs when the cold rain began. We got wet and had a thoroughly good time listening to the thunder.

Verlyn Klinkenborg has appeared in these notes a couple of times recently. I think he’s a fine writer. If asked for one example, I’d quote his remark that a thunderstorm is the music of Rameau, not of Wagner.

If he’d written only that line, I’d remember him.

• Source: Verlyn Klinkenborg, The Rural Life; Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003, p. 80.