Monday, March 29, 2021

Saying goodbye to winter.

 After several wonderful days where I could roam around outside without a jacket, I woke up this morning to spitting snow. Later this week, the temps are set to drop to 19 degrees fahrenheit overnight. 

I moved around the kitchen, packing Tim's lunch. He ducked out to warm up the car before heading off to work. He loves his heated seats and his heated steering wheel. 

When he came back in, we talked about the snow and about how we hope the fire we light on that cold night is the last fire of the season. But will it be, really? Who knows?

But there's a patience about to our talk.

We have had a good taste of spring. The snowdrops are out, and the crocuses too. At the retirement property, the daffodils are heavily budded. The forsythia is ready to go. The spring peepers are out. (The old saying is that peepers have to look through ice 3 times before spring is really here.  Hope that's not true.) Over at my sister's place, the new calves are being born. The red wing blackbirds are back, and the grackles and the robins. The little pond that Tim had dug for me when our excavator came is full of frog eggs. I guess I'd better wait a bit before throwing the barley bag in there to clear the water. The little tadpoles will need that algae for food. 

Unmistakably, winter is breaking up, and we've had the opportunity to get some outside work done, to make exciting plans, to get a touch of sunburn on our faces, to play in the dirt...this communion with the earth and nature gives us the strength to endure winter's last hurrahs. 

We have seen all this cycle before, and we are seeing it once again. Winter does not usually give up easily. Past experience proves that this too shall pass. 

12 comments:

  1. Spring teases us doesn't it. Yesterday and today we've had torrential rain and strong winds and its fairly mild out, by later in the week its to be settled with some sun and a bit cooler then on Monday next week snow is forecast!! It's like winter is trying everything out one last time before packing off to go somewhere else! (at least I hope its the last time!!) x

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  2. Spring is without a doubt the most fickle of seasons. We go from beautiful sky-blue days to thunderstorms, tornadoes and floods to night-time temps in the 20s.

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  3. You folks are having quite a time down there. I think about you and Kelly and Ellie k every time I hear the weather forecast.

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  4. We are lucky that our climate is (relatively) mild - as in no extremes. Just cool and damp all year round!
    PS: I have only just noticed your listing of my blog site on your sidebar. Thanks for the (SOMEBODY) :)

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  5. Frog eggs is a great term. They call them frogspawn on this side of the pond.

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  6. I know what I know, Jaycee. I have heard them referred to as spawn, Dave. We always called them frog eggs. Perhaps it is a colloquiallism. Dunno. Never thought much about it.

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  7. Same here - blowing heavy winds and squalls from the Atlantic across the west of Wales. Jane said, ' why oh why is it so changeable at the moment' and I said 'because we live on the edge of an island and it's April! It's like this most years

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  8. Gradually, spring always persuades us to get outside. To dig. To weed. To plant. To mow. It always makes us feel better than in the darkest days of wintertime when you want to stay indoors and keep warm.

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  9. I forgot--the redwing blackbirds are back!

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  10. Last year at this time I was just praying for spring so we could all get outside and this virus would whither away in the heat just like the flu virus. Man that didn't work out. This year as spring comes, I'm getting optimistic that the worst is behind us for now but I now know that heat won't make it go away, only vaccines and natural immunities.

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  11. Our weather is also oscillating. We did miss the snow that was predicted last night, but it was both cold and windy.

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