They're baaaaaack!

Last week was a beautiful week of sunshine and better-than-normal temperatures (40s and 50s) especially for early March. Our friend Bridget is almost always my outdoors walking partner and she's awesome. She will even get up early cheerfully (meeting at 6:30 am -- in the dark, in the cold months too) in the morning to walk, even though she is officially retired and doesn't have to get up. And she's always receptive to walk. What a friend! Anyway I digress.

So Bridget, their dog and I went walking along the Eric Canal path last Wednesday. It was a great five mile walk but the most exciting part was seeing hundreds of geese flying overhead and then spotting as many as five robins back in the area. It was so cool and it's one of the first signals that spring is indeed on its way. I've seen robins earlier in other years but to see so many signs of springtime so early this year has me quite excited. We heard many flocks (gaggles?) of geese overhead all week -- it seemed sort of like a geese expressway and it was delightful music to our ears.

The canal is drained during the winter since it sprung a leak back in the 1970s so they now drain it to prevent huge leaks and to give work crews a chance to work on parts of it without lots of water in it. In addition to the geese and robins, we saw cedar waxwings (apparently they winter over here, according to Bridget who knows a lot about birds), cardinals and lots of ducks huddling in the water where the ice had melted in the canal.

So we're cautiously optimistic that spring might happen earlier than later this year. Most of the white stuff is gone from the yard and I even spotted an unfurling fern in the ravine this morning. I have a pot of fresh parsley in the front yard and was able to snip some of it to make meatballs last week. Anyway, lots of positive signs. Perhaps my late fall boycott of saying those two words that rhyme with splinter (begins with w) and crow (begins with sn) thereby giving the cold weather season more power (even if only in my mind) made a difference!

Welcome spring!