The season’s first big snow found him on the shed roof by 7 a.m., trying to nail down the last few sheets of tin before the storm begins in earnest. Already, the air is thick with snow. He sees the cows, bent to their feed, broad backs coated with white. He sees the boys, sleds in hand, trudging through the accumulating snow. They are yelling. Maybe they are arguing, maybe they are just yelling to notice how the snow hushes their voices. He yells, too, but they don’t hear or, if they do, don’t acknowledge hearing. They are getting older, learning that he can be ignored.
   
It is 16 degrees. The bare fingers of his nail-holding hand burn with the cold. The tin beneath his feet is extraordinarily slippery, and twice he almost slides off the roof edge. It is not a long drop, so he can enjoy the sensation of sliding, knowing that even if the worst should come to pass, it won’t be that bad. But it doesn’t.
   
He has always loved winter. For years, it was for the skiing, the cut-loose feeling of falling down a mountain, at once in control and out of it. He still loves to ski, but increasingly finds his appreciation of the season coming from quieter things. The sight of those cows, uncomplaining as the snow piles atop their hides. They stand so still, as if giving the storm permission to fall upon them. There is something honorable about it.
   
Or the way a block of hard maple sounds when it submits to the maul. Goodness, but he loves that sound, loves the lubricated feeling of his muscles working in the cold, loves gathering up the wood and carrying it indoors and watching the flames take it.

Even the absurdity of laying roof on a 16-degree morning, in a snowstorm, no sure footing to be found. He should be cold – hell, he is cold – should be miserable, should probably wait for the storm to pass. It’s not his work ethic that keeps him up there, nor some misguided notion of what defines valor. He has no surfeit of these particular traits, although it is true that he takes strength from the sight of those cows, from the sound of his boys whooping in the cold. It is true that a small part of himself will measure its worth against the portion of the job that remains unfinished at day’s end.
   
But it is more true that the settled, elemental nature of winter soothes him in a way he can’t quite define. He does not see it as a battle; it is more like an acquiescing, a simple, humble acknowledgement that there is so much beyond his control. The cows know it. He’s pretty sure the boys know it, too, though it probably won’t be long before they forget. They are only human, after all. That is their only failing.
   
He comes down. The task is unfinished but he is, at last, too cold to carry on. He looks up through the hole in the roof, feels the snow on his face. In a moment, he’ll go inside, hang his coat, put his gloves by the fire to dry. In a moment, he’ll be warm. But for now, he stands there, doing nothing.