End of March 09

The calendar says it is spring but mother nature isn't listening... at least not up here in the still frozen tundra of Maine. Today is very windy and cold. Not below freezing but the wind has a bite to it. The snowbanks are melting and giving forth the prizes they collected over the winter. Bits of mangled trash, a crumpled cigarette pack, an old paper coffee cup, a single, sad glove with no match. We discovered why the Christmas lights on the trees out front stopped working in late December.... the snow blower operator had cut the extension cord clean in two pieces. A tiny bird's nest blew out of a tree and Hannah caught it. All winter we have been watching the final, dried leaf on one of the red oaks that line our driveway. It clung gallantly on those windy, cold days of December, January and February. It hung on through an ice storm and a blizzard and torrential rain. This morning it was gone.

The tulips are poking through the ground and so are the daffodils. I've tried to warn them to not be anxious. "No!" I tell them, 'Stop growing! It's a trick! You know she is going to give us at least another foot of snow before this is over!!" Every year she does this to us. Teasing us to get out there and rake our brown grass and sweep 47 bushels of sand off the driveway...... only to awaken one morning to a fresh blanket of snow and heavy sighs of defeat.

37 more days until the campground opens.