Winter has lost its newness and its luster and I find myself alert for the small voices that signal change…
Without any snow cover there’s little to contrast the lack of color in the landscape if we don’t look closely…
The change now, in mid-February, is in increasing daylight as the sun swings north again…
That light and the sogginess it brings underfoot, the extra brightness it adds to shrunken viburnum berries…
And the fragile texture of butterfly wings that it reveals among the tatters of last summer’s hydrangea…
All are among the small voices that signal hope for change. Have you gone looking, yet, for Spring?
Mostly I didn’t find much, but there are snowdrops in the neighbor’s garden and the promise of hellebores… can peepers be long off? Cardinals are singing some at first light and the redtails perching closer together… maybe it’s closer than it feels.
😉
we’ve been about 4 degrees below normal since september .. daffodil and tulip sprouts – and the primroses about to bloom big time – very slow this year!
I too am weary of this unforgiving winter and look for spring every chance I get. Great photos. I love the last one and how you were able to pick up its gorgeous details.
Your photos are fantastic!
Aren’t snowdrops wonderful?
The cardinals are really singing here now, and just yesterday I saw that the daffodils at the mailbox bed are already 3-4″ high… when did that happen? Need to cut away all the dead and make room for the shoots of new growth. It’s definitely coming…
Yep. Our Towhee is singing, the witch hazel is blooming, the woodpeckers are beginning to drum. I can’t wait!
It’s especially weird here. We are finally getting our winter and yet spring is coming too.
Definitely spring is on its way–my hyacinths are starting to poke green blades out of the soil.
Take heart–the cycle of the seasons continues unimpeded.
(Word verification–bruppin. Sounds like a good word meaning bulbs pushing green stalks out of the ground. As in–it is finally bruppin out there!)
I am so done with Winter. Bring on the bees, man.
Seeing the red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks all cozied up with each other means the beginning of the end for me. I watched a red-tail in an old nest near the highway today, and the look on its face was priceless.
“I KNOW I’m supposed to do something with this bunch of sticks…..what was it again? “
The cardinals and house finches were singing quite nicely yesterday, but the weatherman is predicting lows of ZERO again for Thursday and Friday, so I think spring is still a long ways off here in Minnesota. 🙁
I leave Thursday for the Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys. Maybe I’ll find spring there. 🙂
I’m pretty sure I’ll find spring in the Everglades, where I’ll stop on the way down. Last year there were baby owls, anhingas, and osprey.
Speaking of which, there is an GHO on an old red tail nest behind my office building. I see a little bit of spring every morning when I park my car.
We have peepers!
They’re coming your way…