Winter Banished, Spring Peeped into Place

Ann calls my (off) white bathrobe my "Tsuga-suit"
Ann calls my (off) white bathrobe my "Tsuga-suit"

The boys at their leisure, lounging (as the dog almost never does) on the love seat where I take my most powerful power-naps next to the woodstove.

The bathrobe, long-johns, sweatshirt and wool socks are soon bound for upstairs storage.

It is official: the tiny cruciferous amphibians have spoken: Spring is Peeped–from every rain and snow-melt-filled roadside depression. The White Witch of Winter is banished from our lives (unless, of course, she has to come back and pick up a few things she’s forgotten, and leave us an April snowstorm out of spite.)

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. OH YEAH. POWER NAPS…….LOVE ‘EM

    YES, FRIDAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING………WE HOPE. I AM READY FOR WARM WEATHER AND BLUE SKIES.

    I THINK YOU OWE TSUGA A NICE SIZE BONE, FOR POSING, WITH YOU, IN THIS PHOTO……….GOOD PHOTO, BY THE WAY.

    MARK

  2. Our early-blooming daffodils are out and putting on a show, and the spring peepers were deafening down by the creek yesterday evening. Could this really be it? Could spring really finally be arriving?

  3. Hadn’t noticed it (our few plants of it don’t emerge yet, too cold down here.) My guess for anything eaten as soon as it emerges is deer (two crocuses the night before, none the morning after.)

    You’re not going to tell me spring peepers? That I’d have to see.