This picture pretty much sums it up. It's a chilly February morning...though the forecast promises it will reach 28 degrees today! Everything is snowed in and frozen in a giant drift that has been steadily growing for the past several weeks. What started out as pretty, fluffy stuff has melted and condensed and melted and condensed until bushes, trees, bird-feeders, garages, houses - entire neighborhoods are locked together in a dirty, road-salted glacier.
Nothing seems to want to start up in this weather. The car coughed and sputtered several times before relenting and warming up this morning. On my way out to warm it up before heading to the gym I slipped and fell flat out on the icy driveway. It took forty five minutes and a whole lot of huffing and puffing with the bellows to get a feeble fire started. So far the thermostat hasn't noticed. Even the coffee is weak this morning!
I am trying to cheer myself with thoughts of spring, but thoughts of dirty dishes, unwashed laundry and grimy floors are getting in the way. Doing housework on a cold morning is just so unappealing.
It seems like an unlikely morning to be filled with gratitude, but I am. I remember how dark and sad the burrow was that first November, when we moved in. The wood-paneling was dark...the rooms small and space cramped. Now, even on a cold, stiff morning, the house is filled with light.
Sure, the myriad windows in the living and dining room probably keep the temperature down. But I can see the world, frozen up as it may be, from almost anywhere in the house. Rather than fighting the cold alone, I feel the fire in the little black wood stove is struggling along with me. As if to agree with my unspoken thoughts, it coughs up a fresh flame and ignites another log.
Oblivious to our frosted struggles, wrapped toasty-warm and sleeping on the couch beside me is the best reason to be happy this morning: Evan.
He is six months old today, and he is just perfect. By the time he is really old enough to notice the weather, it will be spring. We'll take him on tours of the yard, and introduce him to the robin's nest in the Ent, and the gardens, the various sheds and outbuildings.
We'll let him dig his little hands into the dirt and grasp at the bird-feeder and crawl in the muddy grass. And then we'll take him inside and wash him up and dream up plans for his own little garden...Ahhh. It feels warmer already!
