A Little Melting Going On

A little melting has been going on in the village in recent days, and suddenly there were vivid colors and wild musics everywhere. Cardinals and redpolls cavorted in the garden, and the bells in the old crabapple tree oscillated back and forth with abandon. A murder of jubilant crows awakened us around four-thirty every morning with their raucous antics and ribald ditties. Puddles in the street were fringed with melting ice, reflecting rooflines, buildings and parked vehicles, buildings, blue sky and clouds. On our early walks, sunlight, blue slush and old bricks made fetching visual arrangements.

Snow relocated by village plows and my snow blower this winter was several feet high a few days ago but has dwindled and is down a foot or two. Snow on the sundeck was too heavy for me to dislodge with fulcrum and shovel last week, but the white stuff has disappeared completely, and I can see bare boards through the kitchen window.

Imbolc has come and gone, and springtime is certainly happening in some parts of the world, but it won't be making an appearance here for some long time. Old Man Winter is already rattling his icy talons again, roaring through bare trees in the garden, chilling us to the bone and delighting in our glum expressions.

In such weathers, I feel cauldrons of soup, turkey meatloaf, casseroles and sourdough bread coming on, also molasses cookies and scones. Stirring up such things is comforting when temperatures plummet, the wind howls in the rafters, and one can't see her neighbor's veranda for wind and tumbling snow.

The teapot is warming, the kettle is burbling, and my favorite mug awaits. Time to break out Sarah Leah Chase's New England Open-House Cookbook and hatch a few culinary plots, also Alexandra Stafford's Bread Toast Crumbs and The Art of Simple Food (I & II) by Alice Waters. Yum, we can do this.