Another grey day. It couldn’t decide whether to snow or rain, so the sky took the middle road, covering us in ice masquerading as snow. Walking on the unshoveled sidewalks was like walking in shallow sand: step, sink, grab, step, sink, grab. After nearly 3 miles, my left knee and right hip were grumbling to get home. Our little pond looked almost skateable (big enough for pirouetting only), and the garden looks like it won’t be in bloom for weeks. Dollars to donuts, though, by this time next week all this will be gone and the green sprigs and flower buds will come out of hiding. The cardinals stand out more against the white backdrop. I counted two dozen hunkered in the butterfly bush and dogwood, waiting their turns at the back yard feeders. At the front feeders, juncos skittered out from under the barberry hedge to snap up seeds dropped by the downy woodpeckers, starlings, English sparrows, and house finches.

In a video conference today, a colleague announced the temperature at his house in Orlando: 81 degrees. We’ll get our own back in mid-July when it’s 98 and humid in Orlando, and here it’ll be… probably 101 and humid. To cheer me up and hurry summer along, I booked a cottage on the Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore for a week in July. Yep, despite my northern upbringing and a dear love for the snow, I’ve turned into a cold wimp.