Dreaming of Spring

Today I tried to remember what the local landscape actually looks like without all of the snow. I thought about how green the valley looks when spring reawakens the earth. My imagination allowed me to breath in the fresh air and drown myself in the sweet rain. And the spring flowers dotted the countryside: snow drops, crocuses, daffodils, and tulips. (I make the above photo last year when the tulips were in bloom.)

I had a group of seven year olds in the library today. They wanted to know how many days are left until spring arrives. So, we looked at the calendar and found out that there are 12 days left until spring is suppose to arrive, even here in Central New York State. They also knew that the snow will still be on the ground on March 20!

Fortunately, the temperatures are suppose to be a bit warmer starting on Saturday. The daily high temperatures are suppose to be above 40 degrees F. We are going to start daylight savings time on Sunday, and I look forward to the longer days.

It has been a very strange winter here indeed. Actually, we didn't have much snow at all here until the end of January. We even had a green Christmas. However, we have suffered with all of the snow and very cold weather since the end of January. I read in the local newspaper that we received 85 inches of snow last winter and our total for this winter is 115 inches.

I recently found a quotation that brought me some comfort, "No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn." (Hal Borland) And so I hope and pray that winter will give way to a gentle spring.