The Melt

It’s very melty around here today. All of that snow we got a week or two ago is slowly (and sometimes not so slowly) changing states – from solid to liquid and turning our parking lot into a lake.

Yesterday, I dug a trench through a snowbank to the drain hole under the stone wall in the lower corner. While this new development has stymied Sophie who enjoyed keeping her feet clean by walking over the tops of the snow banks to one of her “peeing” fields, the civil engineering function was successful and Lake Mudpit started to drain.

I just returned from a walk with said dog who is now stretched out at my feet waiting for a sunspot to eventually get around to her. It was warm enough that my jacket had to be unzipped, my gloves removed and stuck in pockets, and my hat finished up in my hand. The sun is beating down out of a cloudless sky and the sound of dripping and running water is everywhere.

As I write this, I sit in my perch in the corner of my bedroom with windows at my shoulder and directly in front of me. I wait for the singing of frogs. I keen for their magical voices that mark the true ending of the cold times and the birth of spring. It will be a while yet as all I see is white snow, the brown of last year’s rushes outlining the pond in front of me, and the reddish brown oak leaves that stubbornly cling to the trees between me and the pond, waiting to be finally dislodged by this years new growth.

Yes, it will be a while, but I can feel it coming. It won’t be long before the snow is gone and the first brave green things start pushing up.

My cold is better. It mostly makes itself known in the morning upon rising. I spend a fair amount of time coughing and trying to shake out the junk that accumulated while I slept. The constant running and blowing of the nose has receded to the occasional honk. Yesterday, I had enough energy to start to pick up the house a bit from the previous days when it was all I could do to take care of the basic minimum.

So, that’s all for now. I hope that you can enjoy your Sunday afternoon wherever you are.