Spring Ahead

February morning on Dead Moose Pond

Late February. It feels like we’re on the cusp of something; the only question is, what? Spring could be just around the corner, or still eight weeks distant. The cold has been steady for months, never severe, but also never quite relenting, and though we’ve had few storms of significance, the snow lies feet-deep on the ground. The woodshed is lean. The hay, too. Enough of both, I think, but only by the thinnest of margins, the sort of margins I’d like to think were relegated to my younger, less experienced days, but alas. Some lessons are harder learned than others.

In three weeks, we change the clocks. I don’t relish it, honestly. I prefer the early morning light, prefer the early mornings in general, ample time to orient myself to the day, only the cats and the cows demanding my attention (and both so readily ignored). “It’s just the government’s way of reminding us who’s in control,” is what my father used to say twice each year, whenever the time change rolled around. I don’t know if he actually thought this true, or if he just enjoyed fancying himself as the sort of person who thought it true. Knowing my own predilections, and alarmingly aware of the old adage about apples not falling far from the tree, I’m guessing the latter.

Snow fell this morning. I watched it through the window for a while, and then, perhaps not quite as enthusiastically (but not yet begrudgingly!) as only a week or two prior, I rose to put on my boots and head outside.