Winter’s Second Entrance

After everyone has talked about the insertion of spring in January’s notes for the year, now comes the reappearance of winter. It has been steadily chilling, until today when early this morning I looked out upon diamond frost. That is when a veil of frost covers the ground with its netting of white, but overhead the clear and frigid Nordic blue skies allow the maximum of sunshine to sparkle and glint off the lawn like diamond dust.

I enjoy this type of winter; and if we are spared the usual decline into minus zero temperatures I will be more than glad. It’s best in the ‘teens’ when you get that sharp suck of frozen air, but it doesn’t leave your cheeks all chapped. Our ground was completely saturated and parts of Ohio are still under flood watch- we are too flat on a plain…ain’t nothin’ going to flood here. Still, the saturation and the returning frozen weather means bad news for the plants I believe. We have no snow cover, but the drying winds will come with this dip of jet stream, bringing -as they say- arctic cold.

Experts say the birds will weather through fine, I saw a beautiful red cardinal yesterday and the sparrows all bunched together with their usual squabbles. They are quieter since the weather turned cold again, perhaps that is one way they preserve body heat? Or maybe like us, they like the sun and warmth and just become more chatty.

My viburnum had fully budded into pink blooms and those are lost for the year. I wonder how many other shrub and tree blossoms will show the damage this year?

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