Winter's return.

We had spring, it sprung and winter is back. The pull and push of the seasons, You go to bed saying how nice it is to be in spring, and upon waking, you see winter came back.

Last day of winter

The calendar says this is the last full day of winter, but a look out the window says winter. Still mostly snow covered, but mud is surging upwards. At least that's how it feels.

I spent yesterday morning out on a road that I spend a lot of time during our snow free months. Patches of mud were in the road, ponds are still frozen and the Kennebago River is still ice covered. But spring still is slipping in. Purple finches, brown creepers and the chickadees were singing wildly. Woodpeckers were drumming. I know the conifers and aspens are photosynthesizing, the sap is running. Spring is overtaking winter.

And it is so quiet. Water is babbling, but the snowmachines are silent.

Soon I'll get out more and note the comings of the birds. I still have Bigelow to look forward to and counting Bicknell's Thrush. Acadia? Baxter? Baxter most definitely. I can't wait. So much to do and to look forward to, but not nearly enough time.

Odd collection

I've been enjoying some very nice late winter sunshine, and thought I would share these with you. As you can see, we have mud!

Snow!

This February had been fairly dry. In the mountains, we did have a few snowy days, but it was the kind where it would snow, but wouldn't accumulate. The end of January gave us a rainstorm, which had cut our snowpack by half. That ended last week. It's still snowing. Higher up in the mountains, they got a couple of feet, down closer to town, we got about a foot .

There is a certain beauty about a New England winter. You suffer through some hard times and you get rewarded with magic.