Mountain Diary – A Spring Outing
This week, in the mountain village where our home sits, two seasons seemed to overlap and linger together.
At the beginning of the week, it snowed.
It must have piled up to three or four centimeters.
We had no snow-removal equipment at home, so I felt a quiet uneasiness.
But my wife kept exclaiming in delight, enjoying this silent landscape so different from where we used to live.
Her face, gazing at the softly falling snow, was filled with a gentle happiness.
For me, who had nowhere in particular to go, there was no real need to worry even if the snow kept piling up.
And yet my mind kept drifting into unease.
Worry, it seems, is simply my nature.
When the snow stopped, the clouds cleared that night, revealing a clear and pure sky.
While I slept, starlight slipped through the window and settled softly on my eyes, like snow falling in silence.
The next morning, the temperature dropped to 16 degrees Fahrenheit—
nearly minus 9 degrees Celsius.
It felt like stepping back into deep winter in the middle of April.
These sudden changes still felt unfamiliar, leaving my heart slightly unsettled.
Fortunately, the weather warmed up the next day.
So we decided to take a short spring outing to a nearby place.
One of my wife’s friends had recently been injured and undergone surgery.
My wife wanted to bring her eggs from a local farm as a small gift.
They were not particularly superior to supermarket eggs.
But because they came from chickens living naturally in nature itself,
she seemed to hope they would offer a quiet kind of comfort.
We drove about twenty minutes along a mountain road to a place called Bye Brook Farm.
At the entrance of the farm stood a small shack-like building.
Inside were two old refrigerators and a newer one with a glass door.
The refrigerators were filled with milk, eggs, and cheese produced on the farm.
On the milk containers, there was a sticker that read “RAW,”
meaning unpasteurized milk—pure, in its most natural state.
I told my wife we should not include the milk as a gift,
concerned about possible side effects.
On the shelves around the refrigerators were simple local products—honey, soap, and maple syrup.
On top of the table sat a small cash box, a notebook, and a calculator, placed somewhat casually.
On one wall, the prices of each item were written clearly.
Visitors would choose what they wanted, write down the items and prices in the notebook,
and then place the corresponding cash into the box.
We picked up two dozen eggs, half a gallon of milk, and a small jar of honey.
When I opened the cash box, I saw that someone had already been there before us.
There was no one watching, no surveillance camera—
yet in this small countryside shop, something deeper than variety of goods seemed to fill the space.
Honesty and trust.
And quiet promises between people who may never meet.
A wife’s care for her friend,
the sincerity of those who produce goods with honest hands,
and the conscience of an unknown person who leaves money behind without hesitation.
More than the melting snow or the warming sunlight,
it felt as though something inside me had softened first.
Standing in front of that small farm refrigerator,
I saw a spring that blooms before flowers ever do.
