Spring has Sprung…….Somewhere

Snow drifts

This week spring officially arrived in my neck of the woods.  But you’d hardly know it – we still have about 30 cms (a foot) of snow in most areas and even more drifted in 2-3 foot (100 cm) swaths throughout the property.  The temperatures have been below normal with most mornings starting out at -10C (14F) or even colder and most days barely making it to 0! And the days have been dark and gloomy lately.  I’m tired of winter!  I think it’s got to be the time of year because when I checked my archives, l wrote about being sick of winter in early March 2012 ( ‘Yearning for Spring’)

Where’s spring?

There is heat in the sun now – a warm, wonderful heat that strikes your face and makes your skin tingly.  Every other body part is still covered up since it’s not quite up to zero degrees celsius (32F) these days.   The maple tree sap even stopped running. And the days are getting longer!  Oh joy!  It’s well after 7 p.m. before it’s dark now.

And the air smells like spring too – you know, that fresh smell of outside line-dried laundry.  Ahhh, heavenly!

And water dripping off the roof, forming  very long, crystal-clear icicles shining like daggers.  If you can yank them off carefully and set them in the freezer, they make pretty cool drink stirrers or ice cubes.

Dripping Icicle

And there’s lots of activity at the bird feeders.  I’ve hardly seen Bluejays all winter long, but now they are frequenting my suet feeder daily, screeching loudly.  I used to fill the suet feeder every week and a half or 2 weeks and now I have to fill it several times a week!  Greedy bluejays…..

And Squirrels are everywhere!  Our cat is going nuts running from window to window ‘chasing’ squirrels as they chase each other.  I have a resident squirrel in my wood shed who always skitters quickly away when I come in.  My plan is to block up his ‘doorway’ at the eves, but I’m waiting until early summer just in case she has a family in there.

Squirrel watching

And the buds are forming on all the bushes and trees!  That’s a sure sign that soon everything will be green.

Buds

I see animal tracks in the snow every day – mostly the feral cat in the neighbourhood who visits our porch during the night.  But today I saw some small tracks down by the river.

Animal Tracks

I saw a picture a few weeks ago of the beautiful cherry blossoms in full bloom in Victoria, B.C.  Wow, it was amazing to think of a place in Canada with green grass and blossoms!

I promise, these will be the last winter-like picture I will publish this spring!  BTW, I really did take all these pictures today.  Will the real Spring please stand up!?!

Still waiting for Spring…..