While we’re talking water, let’s dig into air. In the Amazing Department, air is right at the top. It’s everywhere, but if you’re fortunate to live in Maine, you usually can’t see it. You wouldn’t even know it’s there. But it is. Everywhere. In Maine air wears its invisibility cloak much of the year, especially in winter. And this winter here on the farm it has felt as if there isn’t a particle of dust in a thousand lungfuls.

Last night the temperatures began to cool off, and it was down below freezing all day. The puddles remain frozen though the road is muddy, and we bounce from rut to rut as we drive up to the orchard. Some might complain that it’s raw and gloomy, even bleak. But it’s March, and the air right now is as good as it gets.

Is it even possible to describe what it’s like to live submerged in this vast void? We are fishes swimming in the ocean of air. It surrounds us and cradles us and even permeates us like the love of those who we hold most dear. We inhale, and our throats, lungs and entire bodies are renewed and refreshed. Today the air is delicious. It must be the apple trees sucking up the carbon dioxide. When they exhale, out comes an explosion of oxygen. As our feet walk through the snowless, muddy orchard, we swim our way through this invisible, magical, glorious sea we call air.