"Enough is Enough"

Even the natives are restless in Wisconsin. Sure, the home folks know a thing or two about an old-fashioned  winter, but the last few have been teasingly mild. We are having the longest, drawn-out winter since the 1950's, statistics say. Except for the die-hard ice fisher-people and the snow-mobilers, I don't think it's a stretch to say the rest of us are aching for spring.

In fact, the calendar SAYS it's spring. Last year this time, the calendar held up its end of the bargain and gave us plentiful days in the seventies and even eighties. Budding and blossoming occurred early and bumper crops of everything seemed likely.

Oh, what a feeling to rise and shine on mornings like those.....every bird delirious with song, every hour filled with the promise of something to do, something to see, a mountain to climb, a day to seize.

THIS March I am looking out my front room window to a trio of yard-long icicles, and not even dripping ones at that. They are frigid and non-yielding, jagged and brutal looking, having long lost their early season charm.

You can only amuse the grandchildren a few times per season with an icicle. Your own fascination at the daggers faded with your own childhood, along with sledding, igloo and snow family building. Winter is a fact of life here; partake of whatever outdoor activities you still enjoy in the cold, but face the fact that much of what you can REALLY enjoy is going to flat-out have to take place inside.

Flat-out being inside doesn't bother me the way it bothers a lot of people, but it's a tough sell to sound convincing about this. When most of your Facebook family resides in California and their posts include repeated images of living life to the fullest at beaches, desert resorts (like Palm Springs) and all manner of sidewalk cafe, it's kind of hard to make repeated images of a cozy night by the fireside seem preferable.

There's a sled buried in here

This life is just another kind of planet life, and they're just not going to buy it.

The California lifestyle is in my rear-view mirror, and I gotta admit a year-round warmer climate would be nice about this st(age)of life. But there's a thing or two this Wisconsin kind of climate has over a West Coast kind of climate: you can't possibly appreciate the change of seasons until you experience the extremes, and these extremes really do bring the seasons in four clear distinctions. There's no blurring (well, maybe this year there is, in a not-good way) between the seasons. When you're in summer you know it and when you're in winter you know it, no doubts and no wardrobe-waffling. Each season is fleeting, and you gotta live in the moment. If you feel like doing something that depends on the weather you don't just hope the weather will hold--it won't for long and you better just get a move on it.

I'll have my opportunity to post enviable outdoor activity pictures soon, scenes that don't just revolve around a wood-fired stove. It'll be awhile, especially around our house, where the woods and a valley fight the sun all day. But when spring finally hits her stride, the colors, sounds and smells will seem more vivid and vibrant than they ever have, all because we know: we gotta appreciate each season fully in its turn. And you can bet that proverbial bottom dollar we do.

So take your turn, Spring! Just a couple of weeks ago I made my best effort to stack up against the likes of gorgeous sunsets over the ocean and tropical happy-hours on sandy beaches. For weeks I'd been thinking that where awesome images were concerned, "I got nuthin'. "  I'd just entered the realm of Facebook after my family and friends have been on it for years, and I had NOTHING. Lamely I offered shots of pretty snow showers, home decorating ideas, the beautiful grandchildren (not so lame) and the new elliptical machine I had to buy after too many lazy days by the cozy fireside.

Not walking in these woods anytime soon!

Then one morning I was presented with a gift. A truly amazing gift--right outside my computer window. Through the glass and across our rural field, a picturesque collection of deer were waking from their sleep in a snow-covered hill-swell of our woods. They had settled in the night there, because after all, what can any natural creature do but curl up and try to be toasty in this too-long lingering snow and cold?

They're staying with us, waiting it out...

The picture speaks for itself, and it brings us all another day closer to spring. So will a hot mocha and an hour at a fireside cafe with my good pal in town...so will holding cooking classes for the locals at (my) little neighborhood shop, so will crafting stitcheries for my Etsy store.........all this kind of stuff will get ME there, I hope, just as anyone's hopeful ventures will get THEM out of these snowy woods and full-tilt into SPRING.

Mmmm--Can't you just about smell the apple blossoms?

Last year this time, nearly

Note: After a break, I'm now building on my Etsy store, "Sterbuck Farm." Check it out!