It sounded like an impossible task: count every bird in Glen Helen and beyond. Birds like the tiny golden-crowned kinglet, barely bigger than a hummingbird, and the great blue heron, a solitary dweller in the area’s streams and ponds.

Snow is an artist of great attention. Overnight, it drew perfect circles on the rims of our empty flowerpots. It chalked a fat line across the pitchfork’s handle, and dusted every rusty tine.

Villagers cheered as the ball dropped, then dropped again, lights flashing, at midnight on New Year’s Eve over Short Street.

Time, is that you knocking? At the door this time, Time, three sharp raps from the oldest knuckles in the world. Another year by, Time? Really? Why, I remember you at last year’s door.

The ball rose, the ball dropped, a new year made its debut at midnight. Villagers turned out — and decked out — for the annual New Year’s Eve celebration downtown.

“It’s fate,” said Susan Snow, explaining how she and her daughter, Jumana, landed in Yellow Springs. Mother and daughter moved here in 2014, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Jumana to attend Antioch College.

Some villagers had last-minute shopping to do; others came simply for the cake. Either way, Christmas morning at Tom’s Market was busy, festive and delicious.

Megan Bennett’s third-grade class at Mills Lawn learned how to make things from scratch this fall, and now they’re teaching their older and younger peers.

Courtney Stroble, M.D., always knew she wanted to be a doctor. But it took a few years of practicing acute care to discover that her deeper calling was family medicine.

All roads into Yellow Springs are just two lanes wide, and new resident Rajan Kose likes them that way.