Thirty-some years ago, I moved to Saranac Lake for the love of winter. Albany winters were nothing but a tease: snow one day, rain the next. I wanted weather I could enjoy. After all this time, it has finally happened — I am tired of the cold. I am frustrated by putting away boots, mittens and coats only to pull them out again. I am embarrassed by my hypocritical pronouncements of “No more heat until fall” only to edge up the thermostat when no one is looking. It’s a temporary exhaustion; by November I will joyfully anticipate the snow.

A popular post about a month ago detailed the “actual” North Country seasons. So far this year we’ve had: Winter, 48-hour Spring, Second Winter, Spring of Deception, Third Winter, Mud Season, then hopefully now Real Spring. Even though this list is more descriptive than the traditional four, one important season has been forgotten, a season that exists only in places like here, a season that centers around an important ritual: Mailbox Replacement Season.

By my estimations, hundreds of mailboxes have disappeared each winter across the North Country or become fatally injured. Their remains are scattered along the battlefields of winter roads. They are collateral damage; innocent bystanders knocked out in the three-way struggle between icy roads, the crews that attack them, and random vehicles. While snowplows might add to the numbers of the lost, they are performing the good fight, making the roads safer for all. Car accidents, swerving to miss deer, and poor backing skills have also caused mailbox casualties.

Maybe your mailbox survived the winter, but if that is the case, a neighbor likely lost theirs. In our neighborhood, we lost four this year. Some were completely decapitated, and some were temporarily bandaged with bungees and ropes, hoping springtime surgery would save them. We have friends on Mackenzie Pond Road who lose their mailbox because of car accidents virtually every year. This winter when a car spun off the road and into their lawn, they rejoiced that the vehicle missed the mailbox. An hour later, the tow truck took it out.

When the ground thaws, the Mailbox Replacement Season begins.

When we lived in Vermontville, we lost a few. Each time the disappearance would be a bit of a mystery. Like forensic scientists, we would try to recreate the crime scene. Skid marks — most likely deer. A broken mirror and tire tracks in the ditch — probably driving too fast. Heavy snowfall — must be the plow.

Of course, our mailbox was a lifeline then. The internet was relatively recent. Catalog items were still mail-ordered. Bills were not yet on autopay. And eBay was new and exciting.

As a lover of yard sales, eBay was a ray of sunshine on gloomy winter weekends. As a lover of auctions, eBay provided the thrill of bidding. As a mother of two young children, eBay was an affordable option to outfit them.

This was also before the advent of online financial transactions. If you won an item, you sent a check, and they would mail you the item. This was a slow system, built on trust between strangers, and for the most part, it worked.

On one of those brief January days with little daylight and heavily falling snow, I did a little victory dance as I discovered I had won a bid. I hastily communicated with the seller in Georgia, wrote the check and placed it in the box.

The rest of the day was the winter I had always dreamed of: making snowmen in the backyard, pulling the kids around on the sled, and making hot chocolate while heavy, wet flakes continued to fall.

Just before supper, I asked Bill if we had any mail.

Ruefully, he shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll have mail for a while.”

“Why?”

“Take a look for yourself.”

Where the box had stood, there was nothing except a snowbank.

Had the postman been there before the plow?

At that moment, there was no way to know.

I could only wonder if my check was truly in the mail, and if not, how to explain this delay to a seller who probably never had seen more than an inch of snow.

It would be two months before we would find the empty box in a melting snow pile, a quarter-mile down the road.

As the ground thawed, we salvaged the parts we could, erected a new receptacle and celebrated Mailbox Replacement Season once again.