Andrea Doughtie, Rural Painter

We had the first big snowfall of the season this week and got out for our first snowshoe this morning.  It was a beautiful day and we went to a relatively flat spot for our first time out. A skier had already broken trail, making our job much easier, and the path went up behind the village of Strafford.  That’s the  beautiful white Townhouse on the left.  Not a single building in the picture was built later than the 19th century–altogether a New England postcard.   Since I grew up in Georgia and lived in Houston for nearly 40 years, snow is still a thrill (unless I have to get out and drive in it).   When we first  moved here someone told us that we  had to “embrace the winter” which we make a real effort to do by trying to get outside every day.    Fortunately there are quite a few snowmobile trails around for snowshoeing and sometimes we just go up into our woods–good for burning all those extra calories we seem to want when the weather is cold.  Once all the streams freeze over we can get to places that aren’t accessible during the warmer months.