This year, with I suppose good reason, I have become a little tired of winter. As I write this, a little advance to the time of need, with the hopes of not having a deadline creep up on me too rapidly, it is snowing heavily with gale force winds swirling the snow in the back yard and garden. Not often, being situated in a low-lying protected area, do we get the severe, gale force winds that we have experienced several times this year.
The snow piles, each side of my back walk, though quite light and fluffy, were well beyond my shoulder height when I finished shovelling earlier in the day. Though my memory is short at times it seems to me that I have not seen a winter quite as severe as this since I was a little gaffer fighting the country drifts to get to and from the rural route school house a lengthy mile away from our humble country home.
A couple of days earlier, the sun was shining deceivingly bright, and as I busied myself preparing ample foods necessary for my canaries which are now feeding their second batch of clamouring young, I heard the voice of a robin coming in over the speaker of the monitor, which I have placed in order to hear the outside birds while I dicker in the kitchen. Hearing is not quite the same as seeing, so I threw on a jacket, over my house coat, stepped from my slippers into a pair of snow boots, and eased out the door to see said trilling robin who was telling me spring is here.
Well I was soon to learn that birds have a sense of humour, for although I could still hear him singing from somewhere up in our big old maple I could not see him. It actually took me about two minutes to finally find him perching lengthwise to the limb directly over my head. I have seen morning doves perch this way, and whippoorwills always perch such so, but not robins. Perhaps he had his reason for such a camouflaged stance for not far away I heard a couple of crows crackling their laughing sort of cackle. On the other hand maybe they were just laughing at me.
I had not, up to that moment, looked at the outdoor thermometer on our deck. There it was, reading 15 below zero. And there I was, bare feet tucked into warm snow boots. A winter jacket over my loose fitting housecoat, which ended mid drift between rump and knees. My leather visor added little warmth to my head and ears, while my housecoat, repeatedly flipping in the breeze, trapped little warmth below the waist tied knot.
Having seen my first robin of the year, I suddenly realized that hesitation at this particular frigid occasion, being ill clad as I certainly was, was not a good thing. So I abruptly turned to go back in, but was forced to hesitate for one longer moment. A pair of mourning doves and an uneven number of juncos had just swooped down to breakfast on the seeds I had sprinkled at my door step.
I could not wait any longer, I had to chase them up and away, simply because, below zero temperatures have a tendency not to be kind to any ill-clad digits, which in this particular incident didn’t only include fingers, thumbs, ears and nose. Nevertheless, I must have made it back inside in time, ’cause I have not come down with a cold, my fingers can still find the letters on the keyboard, I can still hear the outside birds on my monitor, the coffee brewing in the kitchen smells nice and my voice has not shot up an octave or two higher. All is well that ends well.
Take care, ’cause we care.