I’m looking at the same thing out my back deck that a lot of you are: A foot and a half of fresh hell snow covering my plans for gardens and landscaping that will go unrealized for a 28th consecutive year.

Not that the seed catalogs aren’t being used for their intended purpose at the moment: helping me survive another Minnesota winter.

I posted a picture of my grill on Facebook late last week. My out-of-town friends said they wish they “had snow like that.” Around the country, people are jealous of what is presently making us miserable.

Out the front window, a mailbox is about to give way to the constant battering of plows, which will present a problem for the delivery of the annual letter from the post office threatening to suspend mail delivery if I don’t make it June-like out there for the carrier, who gets to ride around in a truck.

The BlogDog’s look is withering, a canine guilt drip for passing on the daily pre-dawn walk after a look at the temperature. Suck it up, dog. The rest of us have to. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re peeing on the deck instead of the spot I snowblowed — how stupid do we look snowblowing the backyard? — for you.

Why are we still here?

I was invited to consider the question today and recalled a love letter I wrote to Minnesota in July 2013, when I apologized for my moments of doubts. Moments just like this.

And people have asked me if I’m staying in Minnesota when I retire. Of course, I am, the alternative being residency in a state of crooks, crackpots, and perverts. If normalcy should ever grip a southern state, maybe I’ll leave. But I’m not making plans.

Winter is our meteorological purification. If we didn’t have it, we might be more like them.

So I squint as I look in the backyard. I can almost see July. And it is good.

(Reprinted from July 6, 2013)