Ice, Birds, and a Little Red Squirrel

I’ve had a bit of a cold this week and also been feeling very tired of winter. So I haven’t been the easiest person to live with. Despite my grumpiness I still enjoyed making photographs through the windows of our house. Today I’m sharing some photos of

A couple of days ago we had freezing rain that coated the landscape with ice. Tiny icicles dripped from tiny tree branches. Twigs of the trees in the backyard were encased with ice. And the protective domes above my bird feeders were coated with ice along with varying lengths of little icicles that decorated their edges.

Later in the day as the temperatures rose I saw pieces of ice fall off the twigs and branches one at a time and sometimes in small showers of ice dropping to the ground.

Despite the weather, the birds have been busy at the bird feeders and the squirrels have been cleaning up any seed that falls on the ground below the feeders. I wish I could be as blasé about the weather as they seem to be. But I’m tired of winter, tired of snow and ice, and longing for spring to arrive.

So here I sit grump, grump, grumping about the weather. Is it a good sign that rain has been falling instead of snow? Will we ease into spring once March arrives or face the big heavy wet snowstorms that March is known for?

Who knows? But I checked out a 30-day weather forecast for Minneapolis. It shows us having mostly lows in the 20’s and highs in the 30’s for the first half of March, then from mid-month lows above freezing and highs in the 40’s and 50’s for the rest of the month. I’ll vote for the above freezing temperatures.

Sometimes I feel tempted to get in my car and to drive south until I find some warmer weather and ground that is not covered with snow. But I don’t. Instead I plan to get to work on my book again, which I’ve been neglecting to work on for several weeks now.

Beauty Remains

Meanwhile, despite my kvetching and complaining, when I look closely outside my windows I see beauty. Even on this cloudy morning I’ve seen astonishing beauty all around me.

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing — that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.

― Mary Oliver, House of Light