A quiet morning. Everyone else is still abed, and I am sitting here nursing a glass of water and looking out through the big windows into the wall of rhododendrons along the drive. They are dark and shriveled in the winter cold, and above them the crowned white pines and bare oaks stretch giant hands into the flat pale sky.

We have one more day here before the family disperses, and the boys have requisitioned my car for various outings--friends, errands, fetching their cousin, etc. My only plan is to go for another long walk. Yesterday three of us went up to the reservoir and slopped around the snow-skimmed edge paths, and today I'll probably head downhill to the pond and the dam. There are lots of trail spurs around here (all of them named "Robert Frost"; I cannot get away from that guy) but also a lot of mud, so I won't venture very far from the plowed roads.

Otherwise, the day will be fairly formless. Maybe I'll get some reading done while the boys are messing around on their own. Or maybe I'll take a nap. Regular life is looming.