03.09.16  The Vernal Equinox is ten days away and it feels like the countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve.  Even if it is snowing or raining or dreary in every way, it will be officially Spring.  We wait and wait, here in the north country, for all the tiny incremental changes which herald the new season.  The time change happens this week-end, and that will be a startling adjustment.  Already, there is light in the sky well after 7pm at the dining room table.  Before the month is over,  we’ll go to bed with sunlight glowing on the Fir paneling in our west-facing bedroom.

It’s hard to believe that this sandy lake bed will not be covered in glacier snow melt for another four months.  The snow on top the mountains is sugar-coated in the March sunlight, and it seems like a long time before it melts away–which is what we hope for, nonetheless, with our fear of August forest fires.  I walk in the afternoons with a hat and mittens, while counting all the robins I love.  And, we heard a loon last evening, as we sat on the porch stairs with the kitties.

We have friends going away for Spring Break–to South America, Rwanda, Australia.  I’m shopping for bathing suits, in anticipation of our trip to Hawaii at the end of the month.  We are all impatient for warm sun in this long, drawn-out transition season.  The NOAA forecast says that there is an “atmospheric river” flowing over us in the weeks ahead, bringing rain to the valleys, and snow to the high country.  I scrolled back in time on my blog, earlier today, to see what my photos revealed about March 2015.  There were shots of identical skies, and I wrote about the light, and about the robins, and about the loons and Canada geese.   I’m repeating myself.   And, on March 31st, I wrote how I was going to miss this month very much.  Something to remember each and every day.