However, the cold and wind continued, so we were left to look out the window for Spring. On our small lake, the geese walked on the ice and looked uncomfortable as they searched for open water. Ditto for the ducks. Juncos appeared in the junipers, and when we stuck our noses out the door, we could hear cardinals, robins, gulls, and the occasional red-wing blackbird.
Sunday began brightly without a cloud in the sky....not much traffic on the way to church, but on the way home after a stop for lunch, the roads were chock-a-block with traffic - no doubt others searching actively for Spring. The sky continued to be cloudless, and so we stopped to pick up Islay The Scotty at the house and headed for a ramble on country roads to the north.
It was the clarity of the light that made hope real. Rounded clumps of snow-ice lay at the side of many roads - they would be gone by this morning, and the snow on the north sides of homes and trees and such looked very "thin."
We returned home not having seen the thin fingers of Spring creeping across the landscape, but in the next three days, oh, what possibilities will fill our hearts.
