Here it is again. Early spring and raining and blowing like it’s the last chance. Gold finches are getting golden. Willow branches are rusty and filled with little buds. So are the burning bushes. Crocus are just about ready to go by, bless their glorious little hearts!

The pundits are calling for 3 ]to 6 inches. Can you even conceive of what that is in snow inches? By some measurement standards it is for every 1″ of rain you would get 10″ of snow, more or less, as there are all kinds of variables involved. You know: wet snow, dry snow, blowing snow, big flakes, small flakes, that first magical snow of the season and that last “Jesus not again” snow of the season usually in April, that covers the lawn mower where you left it last night when darkness intervened while cutting the grass for the first time.

There’s a certain tension to spring in Maine. Like waiting for the other shoe to fall. It takes only a few winters here to know with gospel certainty that “it ain’t over until it’s over”. At these latitudes old Jack Frost has an indelible stamp on the back of his hand so he can come and go whenever he damned well pleases!

I looked out back a while ago and noticed that a patch of “naturalized” daffodils are up a good ten inches. The green of day-lilies is poking up all over the place. The hybrid grasses are shooting right up through the old trimmed brown stuff. And on and on it goes. A day like this is good for reading while a pot of something simmers on the stove. What shall it be – what shall it be?