Thursday

Last year all winter long I fretted about the chickens. It seems like an overblown attack of the crazies in retrospect, but when a hawk took one of the cheepers (the young, and graceful Cupcake), I became sensitive to how fragile life was for the farmette brood. Kittens seemed destined to suffer during harsh Arctic blasts, cheepers were like a walking KFC commercial for birds of prey.

This year's animal troubles were concentrated in October and November. We seem to have coasted grandly through the tougher winter months. (Well, it is true that Stop Sign has disappeared. Gone for many weeks now. Did old age catch up with her? Or had she enough of all the cats in her space at the farmette? Never mind that they're all her kids -- she seemed to prefer solitude.)

If winter is for worries, then perhaps I should redirect my efforts and fret some more about the human viruses that are plaguing us this year. Wisconsin's flu season is turning out to be severe. And of course, there are the other viruses...

Thinking about all the above this morning, I prepare the usual breakfast...






... and I look outside onto these last very cold days of the season. We're well below freezing today and tomorrow. February is asserting itself!

And this is when I see it again: the red cardinal. Here's a photo through several layers of glass and screen, so you get just that speck of color:






He's been with us all winter long, hovering by the garage in the same way that the kitties hover by the porch and the cats by the sheep shed.

Cardinals do not migrate south. They seek shelter in evergreens and we have plenty of those around the farmette. They live in pairs and I'm fairly certain his brown mate is somewhere around, but if she is there, she's more elusive. Perhaps she will appear, unruffled, unbothered, come springtime.

Which brings me to this moment of deep satisfaction: the sun is now coming out from behind puffy, irrelevant clouds. That sunshine will be with us through the rest of the cold spell. By the weekend, the freeze will recede. We will have above freezing temps every day, as far as the predictive eye can see. We made it! We survived winter!






Is that good news, or what?!

The kids, of course, take all this in stride. Happy little larks, who can still find joy in a landscape that seems winter weary and drab...











(Snowdrop goes straight to her ongoing story... Sparrow and I read countless little books.)






It's dance day for Snowdrop. Can you tell she's a lion? Me, I notice that she is managing the hula hoop pretty well!





Evening. I need to talk to my mom. A place has an opening for her. I'll be checking it first thing tomorrow morning. I'm thinking -- this next week is going to be a busy one for me. March, coming in with the roar of a lion.

I had been reading some books with the kids when Ed came in from running some errand. I look up and say -- for once, I have no idea what to cook for dinner. Snowdrop throws out suggestions from the sideline.  Why don't you make some soup, gaga. You like soup. With onions maybe?

Much much later I cook up a pot of soup. With onions.