Wednesday, February 20, 2008

There is a good change in the air

by James McDowell
Spring will come! Spring will come!
What a hard winter this has seemed. We have not had extreme temperatures but it has stayed stubbornly below freezing for very long periods and it has snowed, and snowed, and snowed. Finally about a week ago there was a change. The sun is high enough in the sky to melt a little each day even though it still is freezing at night. The driveway is one long ice rink but we have 4 wheel drive and James likes the challenge of plunging up it in 2 wheel drive.Everything is still covered in hard frozen heaps of snow which the cats can walk on handily, but we live in hope.
Spring will come.
Yesterday morning I stuck my head out the door at 7:00 am and heard the first chickadee singing his spring song. Today my winter bird came. Every January or February a logger head shrike comes and sits on the power line. He's very handsome in his formal attire, but I believe the chickadee. "Springs coming...."
This evening there is a wonderful lunar eclipse and the moon hangs like a ripe peach, suspended over the Skimmerhorn. I keep running out so as not to miss anything, but it is brilliantly clear and just as brilliantly cold; too cold to stay out.

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