The bare landscape is revealing prairie secrets to me. As I travel between Ellsworth and Luverne, I’m discovering farmsteads, home sites and habitat that I did not know existed. Topography and surface formations are showing off that could not be seen when the landscape was leafy and green in summer. I can see a lot more detail in the terrain. The 20-mile journey is a route of discovery. Nature’s hidden little treasures are uncovered. Oh, the joy of the prairie in winter!The new sightings in winter remind me that we’re in a good time of year to do some examining of our lives. I might simplify my life a bit, like nature simplifies now, in order to see some things about myself that are hidden at other times. I might discover something that would make for a good New Year’s resolution. For example, in the stark simplicity of winter, as I look inward, I might find willfulness, petulance, hardness, cynicism, contemptuousness that needs to be emptied. As I look at the outlines of my life, I might discover some hidden selfishness, self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-righteousness, self-assertion, and self-exaltation. I might observe some attachments to allurements and charms that are not healthy. On the other hand, with my winter vision, I might discover some goodness in my life that I haven’t recognized before now. What a gift to look at my outer world and my inner world through the eyes of winter.