I looked out the bedroom window early Friday morning to a beautiful winter landscape, slipped into a pair of fur-lined boots, opened the door downstairs to the fresh air and heard the crunch of new fallen snow underfoot as I walked down the driveway.

I stood there and listened to the silence but for the squawk of a bird hidden in the limbs above somewhere; then the chirps of two others. That was all, though. You can't hear snow falling, but what a sight as large flakes floated down covering the lawn.

I decided to take the back way to work through the woods, past Swan Lake and a variety of little ponds with ice forming. Small round holes with amoeba-like arms punctuated the surface.

Driving down Punkup Road is always a treat of nature. It goes down, down, down in its narrow path to the river. The last stretch of the hill was breathtaking this morning. The forest floor was white on either side of the snow-covered road. The tall spires of hemlocks were cloaked in white. Nature's incandescent cathedral.

The car eased onto Route 34 where the Housatonic rolled along in its forever journey to the Sound. In a bend making a small cove, three geese plied the still water, creating small wakes behind them. It was the ride down Punkup that took me back to the mid-20th century and the hill on my uncle's farm where my brothers and cousins and other village kids and I spent winter afternoons with our sleds. We had a long toboggan that a bunch of us could sit on, whizzing down the hill

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to the bottom with enough momentum to freight up the small incline and, usually, gently bang into the fence that kept the cows in during the summer. We'd trudge back up to the top of the hill over and over for yet another gleeful ride down. We sledded all afternoon 'til dark and time to walk home for supper.

My mind turned to the fence posts, hickory, I think, more than 300 of them around the cow pasture. A decade later as a college student I worked on the farm and one summer it was my task to replace all the posts.

With a shovel I dug out around them and pulled them out. I'd back the red Farmall tractor to a hole. Get off, position a large auger mounted on the tractor, drop its point into place and hit the lever. Down it would spiral, then lift it out and pull the tractor away. Place the new post in. Shovel in dirt, tamp it down, on to the next hole.

Last year I saw my cousin who now owns the farm. "Hey, Jim, more than 40 years now and that fence you built is still solid," he said. Back then I helped milk the herd. We poured the milk into large cans, 10 gallons, I think. Four of them fit on a two-wheeled cart that I pushed out of the barn and up a slight incline to the dairy. It was just enough of an incline to make you wonder why God made it uphill instead of down.

Inside the swinging screen door was the large stainless steel pasteurizing vat. Each 10-gallon can had to be carefully poured into the vat. Then came the racket of the glass quart bottles on a long conveyer belt, passing through the sterilization station and dryer. They marched noisily to where the hose from the pasteurizing tank opened to a spigot and the pure white liquid flowed into each bottle. Then a mechanical punch stamped a top on the bottle.

I'd pull them off and put 12 in metal crates and head for the walk-in cooler a few feet away. There were glass doors on the front. If sales were brisk, and they generally were, I'd place the new bottles of milk on the shelves. First I'd check to see if my grandmother was on the other side. On certain days she came in to work the cash register.

If I saw her, I'd knock on the glass door. She'd open it to see her smiling grandson, who'd say, "Hi Nanie, got new milk here."

"Why hello Jimmy, thank you," she'd always say as she smiled back and took a few bottles for a waiting customer.

Funny where a morning snowfall can take your mind on the way to a column deadline.

James H. Smith is the editor of the Connecticut Post. You can reach him at 203-330-6325 or by e-mail at jsmith@ctpost.com.