Skiing along the edge

Today I went cross-country skiing behind my parents' house with six family members, plus Red-haired Sister's three crazy dogs. Beyond their backyard lies a wooded area, bounded on the east side by a highway fence. My mother, the oldest in the group, led the way, breaking a trail through the heavy snow. Snow clung to the branches of the trees, white against a light grey sky. When the kids began deliberately knocking into the branches of the pine trees, the air filled with swirling white.

A big section of the old apple orchard and the woods has been bulldozed for development. On this winter afternoon, a site construction crew were hard at work, despite several feet of snow on the ground. The thick whiteness was a big improvement over the field of mud we'd seen at Thanksgiving.

Dandelion Niece climbed to the top of a pile of slash that looked like a small white mountain. With-a-Why and Suburban Nephew skidded down off the snowbanks onto the snow-packed driveway that will eventually lead to a big medical center. A cement mixer came rolling by, and then a dump truck. Across the newly cleared field, I could see cars driving by on the highway. We waved to the truck drivers and then turned to go back into the woods, the remnant of wildness that gets narrower each year.