Getting Through March

March came in like a lioness, and then the lioness stepped away for a few days. Within the brief tenure of her absence, birds paired off amorously, and there was a short maple syrup run.  Patches of hopeful earth and last year's withered grasses appeared along the fence in the garden, and the birdbath lifted its stony head out of the deep snow.  For a day or two, I dared to entertain thoughts of springtime; gardening magazines, agricultural annuals and nursery catalogues bloomed on every surface in the little house in the village.

The halcyon days are over for the time being.  Now it appears we are back to winter for another week or two: bitterly cold days and icy nights, north winds blowing heaps of snow against the door of the garden shed; shiny new icicles dangling from the rafters, earth and desiccated grasses vanished, and dense clouds of snow in the offing. I think I know where the birdbath is, but I am not quite sure as it has gone under again.

What is one to do?  Well, this one is drinking copious amounts of Twinings Chai Tea Latte and plotting another bed of roses to be dug in a month or three; she is researching heirloom vegetables and laying out the design for yet another quilt.  She is cultivating patience and forbearance and NOT looking out the windows at the weather. She is hoping fervently that Lady March will get her act together and morph into a lamb, darn it.  At the end of winter, one becomes just a tad maudlin.  When a dear friend in the Lanark Highlands told me this week that there were nearly sixty new lambs (mostly Blue Leicester) in her magnificent old log barn, I could have cried.

Enough is enough already.  Rain would be just fine - it is easier to shovel. One thing about this weather though, the night skies are absolutely fabulous, diamonds and starlight strewn by handfuls out of vast streaming cosmic cauldrons...