Signs, Omens.

The angle of the sun is starting to change out in the writing shed, where my desk faces west into the afternoon sun. The sun's staying higher off the edge of the planet, and for longer. Brighter and sharper, then, on my desk itself. I know it's only early February. I know we've got March out in front of us, notoriously gray and cold, at least at the end, if history holds. The Japanese magnolia will bloom, and then we'll catch a freeze, maybe some ice and sleet. We'll get an eighty-degree day in there once or twice, too. March is a strange one. But the sun's lifting back up again, and we're dragging our way toward spring. I haven't mowed the back yard since the first week of June. We get a little rain here in these next couple weeks, though, and I'm going to have to drag the mower out and run it around some. I'm torn. I want winter. I know we need winter. But I'm ready for spring, too.

It's supposed to be windy tomorrow, and some of that is starting up already. A few thin clouds out there from time to time. Warm. Sixty, at least, front and back doors open. It cools back off a little next week, and we're forecast to pick up at least one hard freeze. That ought to slow the bulbs some, but they're so far along that it won't be enough. I'm trying to think of what comes next. Maybe the early trees, the cherries and plums. Maybe the hostas start working their way up and out. Maybe just these few daffodils, and then nothing else for a couple of weeks.

It rained pretty regularly there for a while, but it may be time to crank back up that regular drought lament. We're still mired in D-4. We're still way under for both the calendar year and the year that runs from this February to last. We're still under watering restrictions. We're still, or I am, anyway, waking up each morning, looking out the window, and hoping like all hell it's nowhere near as pretty as it is today.

Yesterday the dog peed on three manhole covers. That seems worthy of footnote, if not of note. It's a harbinger, an augury, though of what, I can't quite say.