Seasonal adjustments

Today’s temperatures won’t get above freezing. Tomorrow’s might barely make it. The ephemeral pond in the back yard is now ice covered. Wednesday and Thursday are forecast to bring 6 or 7 inches of snow. It’s Spring in the North Country. Accordingly, today we started Spring chores before the past season’s accumulated dog droppings are re-covered by half-a-foot of snow and slush. The down-lined, wind-proof coat I bought years ago to wear during November duck hunts came in handy fending off a windchill in the midteens.

11 seasons?

The Better Half has a pot of french onion soup cooking for tonight’s dinner. I’m struggling with an attitude adjustment. Instead of fussing and fuming about weather that is too much like February when the calendar has us almost in April, I’m reminding myself how much I get tired of summer’s heat and humidity and, come August and September, look forward to the kinds of non-Summer foods we’re enjoying today. Do you suppose chronic dissatisfaction is genetic with humans or is it a learned characteristic?

Recently I decided to get back into a hobby I first learned decades ago and then dropped for decades: fly tying. One of my first inclinations was to see if there are newer, better tools than the ones I have. Silly me! Of course there are. Fact is though, I have no idea whether I need, or even could use, those new tools. So, along with “Spring” cleaning this year we’re going to sort through what we have and try tying a couple of flies before we consider adding to the arsenal of geegaws and doodads found on most tying benches, including ours. In fact, looked at with a proper attitude adjustment, the return of chilly, snowy weather can help us focus on internal chores so the return of real Spring will find us ready and raring to go wet a line.

Cold Spring

By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.

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