There are lenten roses (helleborus) in bloom on my route, and the snowdrops are white against the mulch around the trees. Crocusses are adding their purples to the startled February landscape.
I love walking the abandoned parks in winter, seeing the first swollen buds, the rising spikes of skunk cabbage, the trout lilies. The owls are nesting now, and I have seen the red-shouldered hawks in their mating flights. When I worked as a courier, the people in the offices seemed so insulated to me. They spent only a few minutes between building and car, complained about weather they never truly felt, and mourned for Spring, which was happening, quietly, all around them!
There are hard, cold days ahead, wherein nothing seems to move and even the voices of the birds are frozen. But under the crust, as under the seemingly thick skin of a crotchety curmudgeon, there is life, and warmth, and movement.
Taku skan, skanskan.
Killdeer