Somewhere along the way I had stopped hating winter. I fell in love with the way the peeling bark and bare limbs of the sycamore reveal a ghost tree reaching for the sky, and the way the faded beech leaves cling to their branches and rustle in the wind like dry bells. A beech tree in a winter forest gives off its own light in the same way that dogwood blossoms in springtime look like tiny ground-borne suns. I love the great horned owl’s haunting courtship song and the crows’ constant, multilayered conversation. There are good reasons not to make a habit of feeding wildlife—creatures who lose
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