All the leaves were brown. The sky was a beautiful shade of wintery blue. Isabella went for her walk on this winter day. There was something quite magnificent about winter on the Granite Belt. The nights were freezing (literally) and the days, if clear, were dreamy warm. Isabella still had a lot of laundry to do but instead of approaching the dreaded chore, she hid in a protected area of the garden. The hub was Isabella’s secret garden with a micro-climate of its very own. Flowers blossomed at the wrong time, eggs hatched, the offspring flourished, and the water ran warm – all in this sub-zero season. It was all just so lovely that even the Mamas and the Papas did not need to dream of California. Isabella was safe and warm. And that was all that mattered. The laundry could wait another day….. or two…. or more.