Not Quite Spring

I watched from underneath a cozy heap of quilts and cats as daylight filtered in pale stripes through the interior shutters of the east-facing bedroom windows.

The cats trooped down the hallway with me and milled impatiently as I opened the living room curtains

to look at the day.

I pulled on my first-thing-in-the morning assortment of warm clothing, replenished the fires, measured coffee.

It seemed judicious to dole out the dollops of tinned cat food before venturing outside.

Decidedly chilly.  I fed Willis and Co and scurried back inside.

As soon as J. exited the bed I snatched the sheets and bundled them into the washing machine.

By the time they had chugged through the cycles, the sunshine had sulked off behind dour grey clouds.

J. topped up the bird feeders and once again the goldfinches amused us with their

fiesty jostling for position on the cylinder of niger seed.

A light snow fell last evening--snow over muddy ground.

Pebbles emerges from the barn lean-to where J. serves her hay and grain.

Pebs has never had a lovely full mane and forelock.

This winter she is so grizzled you'd think something had gnawed at her hair.

The barn kittens after breakfasting in the carport retreated to their sleeping bags in the

strewed hay of the barn's east bay.

Willis, gallant boy that he is, left his snug bed to accompany me on a very brief walk up to the tobacco barn.

I did peg the sheets out on the clothes line, flicking slender rims of ice from the wooden pegs.

At 3 p.m. the sun came out long enough to offer encouragement and to nearly dry the sheets.

As always when the weather is dark I turned to baking.

Today's treat is Lemon Bars--I love the shortbread crust.

I have "felt the cold" lately, although surely the weather has been less than frigid. Since this room and the bedroom across the hall don't benefit as much from the wood fires as the "living" part of the house, I've rather minded being in here for any length of time.

I'm still reading the usual blogs, just not taking my chilly fingers out of my pockets to type many comments or to keep up with letters.

Even the mid-winter doldrums won't last forever.

Its a time for wrapping my hands around a mug of steaming tea,

curling up by one fire or the other with books and seed catalogs,

a time to plan projects rather than to carry them out.

In such a short time the flurry of starting seeds, gardening and harvesting will begin all over again.

"To everything a season..."