Friday Ramble - On the Cusp of March

Several inches of snow fell here this week, and flinging white stuff out of the driveway, front walk and threshold was the first order of most days. The deck and stairs at the back of the little blue house needed to be cleared too, and I also keep a circular track clear in the yard for Beau to run around. In many places the snow is much deeper than he is tall, and my lovely boy disappears from view entirely when he is outside and making energetic use of his exercise circuit.

The waxing moon was a presence in the sky at nightfall, and temperatures were well below zero overnight. As I looked though my kitchen window around three o'clock this morning, I could hear the north wind rattling the chimney, cavorting across the roof shingles and gamboling merrily through the eaves.

Snow dusted every surface at sunrise, and there was snapping and crackling as winter birds danced from twig to brittle twig among the bare shrubberies and did a little chilled singing to greet the day. Objects in the garden are submerged in deep snow, but hillocks of white stuff mark their location, looking for all the world like pointed Chinese hats. Along the roof line, icicles take shape, dwindle in the sunlight and form again against the blue, morning sky.

Now and then, we have balmy, brilliant days in late February and early March, but for the most part we lurch between winter and spring, grey skies from here to there, winds out of the north, snow and ice pellets, now and again freezing rain. We wandered in the woods for a while this week, but after only a few shutter clicks, my fingers were blue, and back into heavy gloves they went.

Wonder of wonders, a gnarly old willow down by the creek was putting up lovely furry catkins in its protected alcove, and the icicles below it cradled tiny branches and fragile scraps of green. Snow blanketed everything in my favorite clearing, but the little stream at my feet was running free and singing, its waters dark and glossy and filled with radiant possibility. Willow, song and flow are still percolating in my thoughts this morning as I write, a day or two later.

A gallimaufry of seasonal images and motifs, but not uncommon in my native place, and I am quite all right with the state of things. It's always about the light, and there is light everywhere I look, in icicles and trees full of snowy stars, in thawing streams and fuzzy little willow buds. Perhaps springtime is not far off. I cling to the thought and turn my collar up against the gelid wind.