Good-bye, Hello!

Winter dragging its raggedy robes...

Yesterday the sky was the blue of a new baby's eyes. Today it is as grey and silvery as the first catkins I spied on my walk. Rain makes the landscape a blur of soft browns and hopeful yellows with a smear of red osier at meadow's edge, all signs that the sap is rising and spring is coming. Temperatures have risen steadily over the past few hours until the thermometer reads close to fifty degrees! The air smells of suddenly exposed earth, and into the soft morning tumble the territorial songs of the returning red-winged blackbird, the wild chirping of robins, the plaintive little two-note song of the chickadee. A south-facing lilac holds burgeoning buds to the light. In the small feeder pond, the ice is melting. Yesterday a group of ice fishermen sloshed through ankle-deep ice melt that covered the surface of the big mill pond.

This is the Old Man stage of winter. His beard is stained and scruffy. His white robes, once pristine and trimmed with sun-sparked diamonds is now raggedy and dirty at the edges. He may howl on his way out, but out he is headed and behind him, with flowery breath and sweet song dances April.

First of the silvery catkins.