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.