Chad at Fraters Libertas quotes today from a Wall Street Journal column by Mark Helprin. He celebrates the glory and worth of winter:

And this may be the heart of it, that winter even as we fight it is both a measure and cause of our vitality. That though it may exist as an enemy, it is something of extraordinary beauty. And that though in representing the last season of our lives it symbolizes our death, year after year experience teaches us that, miraculously and invariably, after winter’s inescapable conquests the new life of spring comes nonetheless.

Wonderful stuff, and just the sort of thing you’d expect from the genius who wrote Winter’s Tale (and if you haven’t read Winter’s Tale, what are you waiting for?). Even I, the world’s champion heat lover, resonate a little bit with that. I’ve written before that I never felt right living in Florida. I need my spring, and you can’t really have spring without chopping your way through winter first.

Speaking of which, winter’s back in these parts. You may have heard about it on the news. A few days back it was almost 50 degrees. Last night and today we picked up about a foot of snow. But there was a good side and a bad to that, in my case.

The good part was that I got a chance to drive in it. I don’t think I mentioned here that while my car was in the shop last week, the mechanic fixed my four wheel drive as well as the clutch (a local dealership had estimated $1000 for a repair a few years back, and I hadn’t been willing to spring for that. This guy did it for a hundred and fifty bucks). This morning gave me my first chance to try it out.

It’s great.

The big thing about four-wheeling is not to get overconfident. One of the continuing entertainments of a Minnesota winter is watching for the big, powerful SUVs that end up in ditches and fields along the highways, because they thought their 4WDs made them immune to the laws of physics (saw one this morning). Driving in snow and ice is like walking on snow and ice. You take a wider stance, and you move slower. The wider stance by itself doesn’t help much if you try to run.

So that was nice. The shame of having an SUV that gets stuck in snow is no longer mine.

But of course I had to blow the snow out of the driveway, too. Twice, actually, because I cleared the first couple inches last night, to reduce today’s load.

Good thing, too. Tonight’s snow level was just about precisely the maximum height my snow blower was designed to handle.

But of course it’s also the measure and cause of my vitality.