"It is indifferent cold, my lord"

 The sun was briefly out today, and even James is ready to be done with winter.

"Dad, I'm ready to be done with winter. And that's saying something for me."

(James sleeps with his window cracked all winter long and wears shorts and a t-shirt around the house.)

It's certainly stupid cold outside. I've been trying to run very first thing in the morning--even before I have my first cup of coffee. This morning I padded through completely virgin snow at 5 and didn't see anyone else in the neighborhood except for two dog-walkers down by the (closed for the season) ice cream shop. 

Our cardinal friends were back outside yesterday after having been gone for over a week, and I've also seen enormous dog footprints in the yard in the morning. (I'm sure that they aren't bear-prints.) Last year it felt like all the birds in the neighborhood all returned on one March morning, and we stopped school to watch and listen. That day might be just weeks away now.

Or it could be a frigid and eternal March. This is, inevitably, where we get suckered into believing that the winter is over.

Wendell Berry, "Winter Night Poem for Mary"

As I started home after dark,

I looked into the sky and saw the new moon,

and old man with a basket on his arm.

He walked among the cedars in the bare woods.

They stood like guardians, dark

as he passed. He might have been singing,

or he might not. He might have been sowing

the spring flowers, or he might not. But I saw him

with his basket, going along the hilltop.