I once lived out in the country, beyond the babbling noise of car horns, banshee sirens, and life's marathons.  Those years were spent amongst the forest and foxes unseen.  Turkeys and bubbly bunnies were our woodland neighbors.  Milk cows jingled, jangled across the distant pasture.  Tawny deer sidled near the glistening pond, making neighbors with their shadows upon the ice.  God's peace nestled on the porch of our quaint "Ponderosa". My brother and I decided to go ice skating one December eve.  My dad, a bristly fellow, took up shovel and headed to our pond "beyond the wood".  He heaved and hoed, shoveling snow off the "present wrapped" ice.  Snow tipped oak branches where robins once perched.  Flurries floated, settling upon my hard-working dad.  My brother and I dressed as warm as puffy Eskimos.  We trudged and nudged through the white, pure land.  Hopping Jacque Cousteau (my dog), followed our boot-prints.  Finally, we made