Looking for Spring

The older I get the less I tolerate the long cold winters of the Illinois prairie. Long ago I loved spending hours outside building a snowman or a snow fort in the yard, never too cold not to beg for just another hour to play. Then came the walks on a snowy day with a good friend or special beau...soft flakes falling on face and hair. Later, the fun of small children, themselves delighted with a snowman in the front yard, getting wet and cold but warming up with mittens and scarves dry and warm from the clothes dryer. ready to go again. More fun with grandchildren, but maybe I will stay inside and man the dryer for those wet mittens and scarves. I'll have hot chocolate for you when you can stand it no longer. After all I'm a grandma now.

Now. at 71, I don't find the same joy in a snowfall I once did. Oh I can still appreciate the beauty of soft flakes but also the cold seems to seep into my bones and I find myself earlier and earlier doing my spring ritual, looking for the first signs of springs arrival.

I will admit to waiting anxiously for that old groundhog to make his prediction. This year he did not see his shadow so that meant spring would soon appear? What happened to him? Perchance he is aging also and forgot his duty? Whatever his excuse he bungled it this year.

This has been an unusually long hard winter here on the prairie with many snowfalls and blustery winds. We live seven miles from the nearest small town and the snowplow slowly makes it's way out to us. Blizzard conditions, which have occurred all too often this year, sometimes require a bulldozer to break through the drifts along the open roads.

But two weeks ago, while sitting in front of this computer, I glanced out the window and saw the first robin to make it's way to G'ville. What a fat robin, searching the ground for any hint of food. He must have spent the winter in a warm and plentiful spot. Ah, spring is coming. Early in the mornings I can hear a hint of birdsong outside my still dark bedroom window. Soon that song will wake me at dawn every day.

So I grab a coat as it's still below freezing this morning and go outside to do my final search for signs of spring and yes, there just outside the front of the house is the confirmation...green sprouts are making their way up and out of the ground. Last fall I planted a multitude of spring bulbs and they are showing tender sprouts in the still cold ground. Soon there will be daffodil's, tulips, hyacinths and the tiny crocus. Then I will know spring has arrived. I will look back fondly at some of the events of this winter of 2011 but ahhhhhh just smell that fresh air.