Any Day Now

Late January and early February are difficult times for me. Even though this winter has been dry and mild it still has gone on too long and it feels like spring will never arrive. Last week we finally had rain. It seemed almost like an early spring evening, warm and rainy. By early morning a cold front had moved in and the day finished with ice and snow. Back into the deep freeze again for how many more weeks?
Early this morning I decided to go out for coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Panera’s. I love their egg, cheese and sausage on ciabatta bread. As I passed the containment pond the usual gaggle of Canadian geese were crowding the spillway. The geese used to appear in late autumn and stay over the winter and be gone by spring. They are now year round residents and are almost pests to some of the people that live along the shore of the pond.

But up at the wooded end of the pond, which is always quiet and secluded, I saw two pair of ducks. For the past several years this same two pair have been returning to our pond in early spring and raising broods of ducklings. They usually stay on until their ducklings can fend for themselves and then they all disappear in early summer to wherever they spend the rest of their year. I know it is the same two pair because one of the females has a very distinctive patch of white feathers along her neck.

It was good to welcome them back and I will take their appearance, over the word of the local weather forecaster, that it is now time for spring to commence.

  

Welcome 2013

It is bright and sunny today on the second day of the New Year; although the frigid cold is keeping the earth covered in a blanket of white from the snow that fell on New Year’s Eve.

It is time to go back to work fortified with a new spirit. On New Year’s Day we had the traditional, for us being of southern origin, black-eyed peas, cornbread and greens for good luck. We should be covered for the year…knocks on wood.

All in all I would rate it as a top notch holiday. All the kids were home for Christmas and survived the New Year celebration without serious mishap.

I’m really trying to be positive to at least two more months of bracing cold, wind, snow and various other Midwestern winter enjoyments. However, as each year passes my desire to be in a warmer climate grows; one of the small latitudes eastern Caribbean islands would be nice. And it doesn’t help that two good friends have just arrived in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua for the winter. But I will try to be nice about it. Happy New Year!