My Grandfather's home is now my home.

There is no chill wind that can penetrate these walls. Winter winds can rage against these mighty timbers, but they cannot prevail. Inside these impenetrable walls there is only warmth and light. Three stories high and sheltered on three sides by the surrounding hills our home makes a mockery of the cold winds that attempt to steal in. The heart of this mighty fortress is in the basement. It is a huge gas furnace that comes on with a roar and then sends hot air on its way through great pipes that warm each and every room. No cold allowed here.

The attic of my mighty fortress home is a wondrous place. My brother's bedroom quarters occupy the front half of the attic. His bed is old and sags pitifully, but I would gladly give up my bedroom to sleep up here. I spend endless hours up here lying on his bed and cocking and recocking his old beat up lever action Winchester rifle. I have killed many a bear from that position. The back half of the attic is full of treasure. There is an old steamer trunk full of furs that the ladies of an earlier era draped around their necks. Some of the furs have eyes on them that make them resemble a weasel. There are porcelain chamber pots and lots of pictures of men with handlebar mustaches. The pictures of the ladies are equally strange as they are unsmiling and grim faced as if they were in some pain caused by the strange clothing they are wearing.

My grandfather has these splendid paths built through the forest on the opposite hill from where his home stands. You can walk for miles on these paths with only the company of an occasional squirrel scurrying overhead in the treetops. There are large yellow and black striped honeybees buzzing around a tiny purple and violet flower that has pushed its way up through the forest floor. There is a blue-black horsefly that swoops down on you, makes you duck your head, and then departs for more fragrant targets. Tiny brown sparrows are ever present, always chirping, always pecking at the forest floor, always fluttering about. Red-breasted robins who nest in the forest canopy, high above the forest floor, seek to pluck the plumpest worms from the earth for their nestlings dining enjoyment. Sharp-eyed hawks circle lazily overhead, ride the warm air updrafts and wait for some unlucky mouse to show himself.