I want to go outside!

Snow Forecast? Set Up the Patio

IN the cycle of the seasons, now is a time of longing — for backyard sunbathing, for cocktails on the patio, for puttering in the garden, and for the distant time when all those activities will be possible again.


And for those who live in climates where all that is still possible, it is high gloating season, a time to feel superior to those of us who have been slogging through slush, picking our way across the ice, heaving snow with our shovels, condemned to wait out the frigid months inside our four walls.


Then there is another type of person, a rarer breed.


Even in this winter of record-challenging cold, there are those who refuse to cower before the elements and retreat indoors. They never shroud the grill or store the patio furniture. They are exhilarated to relax on the deck in the chill. And they find a special beauty as they gaze at the slate-gray sky on a winter morning.


As the following hardy souls prove, people can diverge sharply in their reasons for indulging in an alfresco way of life. For one man, the spur is football, the chance to prop his TV on a patio wall for his weekly wintertime ritual. Another has created a year-round garden, bountiful not just in summer but in winter, too. For a third, a recent transplant to the city, the goal is to preserve a suburban lifestyle — grilling, hosting parties and even working up plans to build a backyard ice rink.

Now all I have to do to enjoy my backyard and a warming fire in my chiminea is i have to dig through 18 or more inches of snow and ice.
I think I'll have to wait a few weeks.