In the morning the furnace roars up the center of the house, and the clicking igniter wakes the cats, who dutifully demand breakfast even before the sky brightens. The wind and the rain have stripped the color, stripped everything, from the trees, but by afternoon the sluggish sun pushes wind-tossed curls of leaf through balmy air. Spring green, Irish green, invades the garden beds in carpets of self-seeded arugula, kale, and chicory. The deer ignore this bounty in favor of the sweetly fattening apples and pears congregating under the shelter of the trees. The unforgiving snow will come, but we are given repeated, tenuous, second chances.