can't be spring

For two days now I have thought that I heard a Red-Wing Blackbird. It's early for that, but not impossible. Try as I might, however, I have yet to confirm a sighting. Today when I thought I heard the call, I was midway between the woodpile and the house with an armfull of wood. I took it on inside, and grabbed some binoculars. Once back out in the yard, I followed a black silhouette of a bird from the top of one tree to another. There was the call again, except that it wasn't quite right. It was kind of wimpy and strangulated. I've heard Bluejays imitate hawks in order to scare other birds away from the feeder. So I wondered; was this just a wily faker tossing off a bad approximation of my favorite harbinger of Spring? Or perhaps just wishful thinking on my part? I watched the candidate bird through the binoculars for the longest time, messing with the focus and trying desperately to steady my hands enough to catch a ruffle of feathers that would expose the white and red epaulettes. He was just at the furthest range of effectiveness for my glasses. That much I might have seen, but not much more. He wouldn't fly, he wouldn't flash, and he wouldn't call.

Well, this is February, isn't it? In the turning of the year, it's really the middle of nowhere, the middle of nowhen. Gardeners are perhaps planting their alliums. My goats are looking large and pregnant. Trouble is definitely brewing, but there's still a lot of winter to hack through. It might even snow -- not that I'm hoping it will. Some people loath this month. I don't mind it so much, because I always notice how much warmer the sun has become if you can stand out of the wind. And I think, okay,  it's going to be all right. It's definitely warming up again. The days are longer, the stars are different. If you stay up late enough and ignore the cold, it can look like a summer evening out there in the sky.

Besides, time goes by so fast. Last year went quickly; this year is even more headlong. And here I am, running pell-mell down the slippery slope of February in oversized boots, looking back behind me and heading for a tree. Just wait, now -- oh, yeah. Just wait for March.