Clear, cold and very still. Sun in the treetops. A black cat steals out from underneath the porch and sets off all the squirrel alarms.

Puffs of white smoke where squirrels forage in snow-covered birches. One squirrel falls twenty feet to the ground and lands with a soft FLUMP.

Wind and rain have stripped the birches and maples at the edge of the woods. A gray squirrel leaps through the bare branches.