Some folks call it cabin fever; some call it the winter blues. I'm not sure what one might call it, but the lessening hours of light and additional time inside the house this time of year generally makes me feel stressed and depressed.

Luckily I had a few hours outside mid-week last week and got to experience at least a little sunshine and physical labor. Sadly, such times outside are short-lived due to the early sunsets, inclement weather and cold temperatures.

Even as I complain a little, I must admit this has been a relatively warm year thus far. In other words, it could be much worse. I do love the crisp air of winter, the crunch of snow underfoot and the feeling of being alive that being out on a frosty morning can provide. But I don't love spending a good amount of my time ‘trapped' indoors waiting for spring.

I have stacked up all the firewood outside, awaiting a chance to use it. I have it stacked between most of the trees alongside my house, but I haven't really used very much because of the weather. If things keep going like this, I may very well have enough wood cut for this year and next.

Of course, I wouldn't expect that to be the case through the rest of this month and February.

I've noticed that even the chickens have been feeling a bit ‘cooped up' and have been a bit more aggressive with one another. To help remedy the situation, I let them out a few days a week to roam around the yard. While they do seem to spread out some while outside, they still basically stay together. But they don't fight outside like they do when they are all forced to stay inside the pen.

So I suppose it isn't that we are together so much inside that makes us all crazy, it's that we feel like we have no viable alternative. When one has a choice between equal or at least similar alternatives, it makes the chosen seem much more attractive. However, when left without the freedom of choice, or at least without the semblance of such choices, it makes me feel crazy.

I do think it all goes back to the sunshine factor—the more hours per day I get to feel the sun on my head, the happier I feel. Whenever I start to feel the barren walls of winter closing in on me, along with the rush to get things done while daylight lingers and the seeming hopelessness of the endeavor, I find a little time in my quiet place helps.

Everyone needs a quiet place to go sometimes. I used to have a tree I frequented in the woods that was bent in the shape of a bench. I always knew I could go there when I needed to be quiet for a while and things would seem better. These days, quiet places are a bit harder to come by.

Nonetheless, I can usually find one if I really need it. Sometimes as I work in the evenings and everyone has left the office, I have a few moments to listen to the soft droning noise of the car engines as they fade into ambiguity and the buzz of florescent light fixtures seeming as loud as some prehistoric insect. As I sit at my desk, usually taking a break from the project I've been working on, I sometimes am able to transport my mind away from my reality, back to that quiet tree in the woods.

Having spent a good amount of time there, even now I can see the tree limbs and leaves in my mind, moving slowly in the cool forest air. I can remember as a young man I always enjoyed going hunting in the fall, sometimes hiding in the tall grasses that formed our field borders as I watched to see what might appear in the meadow from the forest.

While I did have some success hunting, I also had more than a few quiet naps as the peace of nature soothed me into a snooze as the deer and the antelope played. I've also had the same thing happen in a tree stand, dozing off and temporarily forgetting where I was upon waking, causing me to nearly fall.

Another place that I've found myself able to experience that ‘mental rest' is in the kind of physical labor that a man can enjoy without thinking about too much. With the stresses of life looming, a few hours driving screws and pounding nails or even in a workshop piddling with something seem to make the world go away. I once spent several hours carving out a hammer handle that was only marginally useful. While it was only about half as good as one that I could easily buy at the store, it brought me twice the satisfaction of just buying one. Indeed, being able to focus my energy on some simple task helps me find that quiet place.

Another necessity is a quiet time of prayer and meditation. Even now, I can recall how my father said his prayers each day, on his knees in a darkened room with a closed door, his hands covering his face. I don't really know why he did that, but I'm supposing it was to prevent him from getting distracted. He usually had his quiet time, about 30 minutes or so at a time, about twice a day.

While sleeping provides rest for the body, the mind remains at work through the night, coming up with flights of fancy we know as dreams and continually scanning our environs with our senses. The only way to rest a tired mind is through inner peace and mental rest, however you may choose to attain them. If it seems something is missing in my life, that's usually the something.

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