Spring, perhaps

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It seems that we have escaped the St. Patrick's Day snowstorm this year. This just may be a minor marvel because I don't think that we have missed many others. This has been indeed a "throwback" winter; now, another whole generation of young people will be able to torment their children and grandchildren with "winter back in my day" stories. If the long term predictions for global warming hold up, this may very well be one for the books. In saying that, though, and for what it is worth, I read in the newspaper earlier today that Environment Canada has already predicted that next winter will be much like this one has been —apparently La Nina effect is expected to influence global weather patterns for awhile yet.

This morning was one of those spectacularly beautiful mid-March mornings of brilliant sunshine and cold, powder snow that I have come to enjoy so much in my years here on the North Shore. The snow is so deep that one cannot even contemplate going anywhere off a beaten track without snowshoes or skis, but, finally, the combination of sunshine, wind and no new accumulation for a few days has allowed the snowpack to settle. That means good skiing — off-track skiing — almost for the first time this winter. Mico and I set out to see what is happening in the back forty and simply to enjoy the beauties of the morning.

Endless expanses of pure white, against a backdrop of dark spruce or cedar, under a startlingly deep and intensely blue sky. Only the marks of the neighbourhood rabbits or a hopeful fox mark the snow; the mice and other small creatures who remain active have retreated to their tunnels where they feel secure away from all but the most patient or lucky foxes or owls; down there, they have only the ermines with which to contend. The few chickadees that we encounter are busy finding their breakfasts, but the woodpeckers have decided that it is time to be about the business of courtship. Especially on still, clear mornings such as today, the males begin to drum to advertise their presence and availability to any nearby female. A raven flies overhead, intend on the same mission — or so I determine by its vocalizations.

I come to a place on one of my paths where I have clipped branches from the underside of a huge, fallen spruce so that I can pass beneath. Not now, though; lately, whenever I am on snowshoes, I simply step over it, fully six feet above the summer ground level. To confirm to myself that I am not imagining the depth of the snow, I stop and drive my ski pole down as far as I can reach. My pole, over five feet long, disappears, and so does my hand before I reach something hard. That may be the ground, or it may be the base of a tree — whatever it is, it is a long way down. Idly I wonder for a minute just how long it is going to be before I see the ground once again, especially in places like this that always take a long time to shed their winter coat of snow, even in recent years of relatively sparse covering.

Still, I am spring skiing now — slipping through the hardwoods, gliding over the fields and along the hedgerows, enjoying the sense of warmth in the spring sun — and enjoying the moment, knowing that this too will pass and that, in the passage of its own time, it will be another memory to cherish.