Well, it's been a couple of days since the "big storm" and digging out is still happening around the Chesterville area. Around 28 inches of new snow fell here, and snow banks are dangerously high all around the roads. More than ever, signs of life around the old farmhouse seems to be waiting for a far off spring to come.

It's been too cold this winter to really enjoy the great outdoors, here in Chesterville -- for me, anyway. Not that I'm a warm-blooded southerner, used to swaying palm trees and soft ocean breezes (by the way, doesn't that sound great right now?)

As many of you know who read this blog, from time to time I write about growing up on a dairy farm in the Adirondacks in the 1960s and '70s. As a kid you don't always know the struggles your parents go through when times are tough on a farm, but you know enough. You know life on a farm is a struggle and there are good times and bad. Mostly bad, lately for the small farmers. Living here in Maine now, I see there's bad time ahead for farmers again. This time, it may have a huge impact on all of us

Morning in New England. Dark slowly fades to murky light. Birds stir and flutter, sending a flurry of snow sifting down. Dim red through the trees in the east. The perfect Maxfield Parrish time of day has come.