John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

In these wee hours, after the cars have stopped passing along the county road, while the stars are winking at me from between the clouds, the only sound I hear is a soft breeze lifting off the snow-covered ground.

The night is cold, and the undulating wind wants me to know that winter has settled in, so I shouldn’t be coming out here looking for anything but a chilly experience.

I don’t mind.

I don’t plan to stay long.

I have stepped out the back door on one of my checks on what cool things I might be missing while indoors, basking in the warm glow of a comfortable home.

I walk barefoot through a couple inches of snow to the edge of the yard.

I stop to stand still and take a deep breath of cold air.

It “tastes” so “clean” as I feel my lungs expand with the icy sensation.

My head clears immediately and any indoor fog in my brain from being relaxed indoors for too long has already dissipated.

It’s a great feeling of freedom and clarity.

As I close my eyes, lift my head up to the sky and take a deeper breath, I feel like I could fly to the edges of the universe if I had a mind to.

I fold my arms across my chest and take a few more steps.

I look across the scene into the trees expecting to hear deer nodding along in the snow, following each other through the hardwood understory.

But there are no sounds of animal activity of any kind.

I take in a few more deep breaths of clean air.

In the short span of a handful of minutes, I am feeling invigorated. I turn and head toward the doorway to that indoor world.

Indoors or outdoors, there is something truly incredible about this time of night as it fades into morning – somewhere between 3 and 5 a.m.

The absence of extraneous noise that muffles and mutes creative, simple and clear, cogent thoughts is stunning.

This lack of noise is largely thanks to an absence of human activity during this time, which is also quite effective in avoiding distractions.

Back in the house, I climb the stairs to my study on the second floor.

I close the door behind me and plug in a string of blue lights that I have strung up around the room.

The blue light envelopes everything in the room, including me, and lets my spirit and brain slide down into a state where the possibilities for learning, creating and so much more seem endless.

I look for something to listen to that will fit this grand occasion of respite.

I find a vinyl recording of Duke Ellington and Django Reinhardt, and reach for my headphones, getting comfortable on the sofa.

This recording is from the 1940s and it is ultra cool.

Django Reinhardt traveled through France and his home country of Belgium as a kid learning how to play guitar, banjo and violin. When he was 18, a caravan fire resulted in the loss of two fingers on his guitar chording hand.

Nonetheless, before his death at age 43, he became one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived. He was a significant influence on the guitar playing of Willie Nelson.

In 1946, on his only visit to America, Reinhardt toured with Ellington. Reinhardt played guitar on tour with Ellington and on the album I am listening to.

He had a little black moustache that looked like the peaked roof of a house.

Ellington called Reinhardt “the most creative jazz musician to originate anywhere outside the United States.”

The two men enjoyed a jazz music understanding, but Ellington spoke little French and Reinhardt little English. The tour must have been something else.

Reinhardt died in 1953, only seven years after the tour and six years before Ellington would travel to Ishpeming to compose the soundtrack for “Anatomy of a Murder.”

He also had a cameo appearance in the movie as “Pie Eye” in a roadhouse scene from the Mount Shasta Lodge in Michigamme.

I was born three blocks from where Ellington worked on his film soundtrack at The Mather Inn.

These are the kinds of things I have time to think about and enjoy during these much-recommended wee hours.

It’s also a good time to read, write and work.

I find it to be a complete luxury to not have to be anywhere or do anything, at least not for another couple of hours.

These interludes are essential for me, but they are often difficult to afford as they come at the expense of sleep. I can’t find the place or the circumstance to isolate myself and concentrate so effectively during the daytime.

Then, I am usually working hard on a wide range of tasks both foreign and domestic or at this time of year, trying to keep from being asphyxiated at the hands of the holidays.

It is the season of giving me a headache.

Sometimes in these late hours, I stand or sit at the window and look out into the relative darkness outside to watch the passing slow and graceful forms of deer.

That alone is relaxing.

I think the pastime of watching things like rivers flowing, fish jumping, fires burning and rain falling are often underestimated and overlooked.

I remember spending more than one afternoon with my dad, during visits to my aunt’s house, sitting on the big front porch watching cars passing by on the busy street.

My dad would call out the makes of the vehicles and we would keep track.

Other human-related activities worth watching include people in airports, artists of all kinds creating, small children playing and gardeners.

Reading rooms of various sizes, locations and popularity can prove to be fine places to encounter relaxation and thinking opportunities during the daytime, if they are often sparsely occupied.

I play the Duke/Django album through twice and then turn to Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks for a different kind of cool jazz.

I notice the light outside is slowly beginning to make that black sky fade a bit.

I hear and see a couple of early morning vehicles move past the house on the county road, likely early workers heading in for their day shift.

It’s very cold outside now.

I don’t have to be out there to notice that.

The exhaust from the vehicles hangs languidly in the air and seems to take forever to break up and dissolve.

The temperature is probably down in the teens. Maybe colder.

I retrace my footsteps back down the long hallway from the study to the stairs, then down, across the kitchen and out the back door.

As soon as I get outside, the smell of wood smoke curling out of a neighbor’s chimney hits my nose. For me, it’s one of those rudimentary smells I associate with some of the early times in my youth.

That’s likely why I love to have campfires all year round, especially on the coldest nights. It’s fantastic to be outdoors then to hear cracking ice and trees under those conditions.

Having a roaring campfire and plenty of wood to burn allows me to stay outside for much longer than I would otherwise, were I just sitting there.

It’s still too early for birds to be out foraging for food and maybe too cold for the deer to be up and around walking around. They are probably bedded down back off our property in the cedars and hemlocks to the west.

No owls, wolves or coyotes to hear tonight.

Not even a barking dog.

No interesting sounds near or far.

The snow and ice clouds that had been flying overhead a couple hours ago have all moved out.

Inside, I’m feeling good.

The time in the study was well-spent. I am realizing I do far too little of this kind of thing compared to what is in my best interest.

I hope to do much more of this as the year winds down and we get ready to start all over again. Right now, the idea of another whole year to trudge through seems heavy right now – another indication that more rest and relaxation is needed.

I just remembered that it’s also going to be a presidential election year.

I think maybe I should put in my medication order now.

Down, black dog. Down.

Get back under the damn porch.

There are tracks across the back patio of what looks to be a house cat. As far as I know, all the house cats in our neighborhood are indoor cats.

I sense a new mystery to investigate.

The game is afoot.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.