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Show viarcn io-viari.n xt, noi, v-vw To Everything t There is a Season Just last weekend, it was short sleeves and sneakers now it is snowing again. It isn't nearly as hard on us though as it is on the brand new calves and lambs who are huddled against their moms in the fields wondering wonder-ing why it was their bad luck to arrive so early. The mornings are still cold enough to frost the windshield wind-shield and there is often a fresh dusting of snow on the porch. The ski reports are enthusiastic but we are not. The memory of last weekend's romp in sneakers is making our toes rebellious. rebel-lious. There is no way they will cooperate with a pair of heavy ski boots. Everything seems to be in limbo between winter and spring. The ice on the lake breaks into slivery crystals at the slightest touch as if it is trying to become water, the rocks along the shoreline are warm to the touch and in the shade of the junipers, patches of moss are just turning green. Our sneakers pick their way through grass then mud then crusty snow. We are passing the time collecting first signs of spring meadow larks, robins, crocuses. Parts of the county, we discover, are way ahead of others. In Park City, it is still decidedly winter. Perhaps it is a matter of attitude as skiers would be more apt to record the last signs of winter perfect corn skiing, bluebird days, red klister wax than mooning over the first faint signs of summer. We have also already begun reminiscing about the big blizzards. If at one time we were cursing our snow shovels and whatever brought us into these mountains, moun-tains, now we are thumping each other on the back and bragging about how deep it was and how high the snowbanks were on each side of the driveway. Wasn 't it fun? That's easy to say now. After all snow is always easier to shovel than mud. Now we can complain that the snow is gone. In its wake, we have found new things to worry about. There are, for instance, suspicious looking tunnels leading from the harn to our garden. The earth is freshly turned in the vicinity of last year's potato patch. It can only mean one thing the gopher is back. Our gopher, however, is the only unwelcome return visitor. We've been holding our breath hoping the sandhill cranes will come back and last Saturday, we saw 13 in flight over Rockport. Monday, we could hear them chortling through the snowstorm and we knew spring was really here. NC |