I've realised what the thing is that I dislike most about winter.
More of the interesting, useful, and food-bearing trees are deciduous - they hibernate. Hazel, peach, persimmon... so many others... You cannot tell (without significant laboratory tests) whether or not they are still alright, alive but asleep. If you have a tree that you aren't sure is healthy, or you planted into the ground late in the season - you cannot tell whether a tree is asleep or has died until the change to spring, and the emergence of leaves.
It has been a mild winter, although good enough to get the deciduous trees to drop their leaves. Now, one peach tree, healthy before winter, has bloomed, plenty of leaves and flowers; the other, suffering an infection before, and treated over winter, has yet to show life. A few other trees have yet to show life. I have plenty of non-deciduous trees that are happily growing, putting growth even during winter.
I wonder, in face of humanity's on-coming winter, will the species continue to grow, hibernate, or die?