Get your mind off wintertime,

The weather is getting nice but there is a chance of getting distracted by the things that need to get done.  Winter is coming, and there is much to do while the temperature allows it.

Yes, fix that gate and cut that hay but read a story to your kids too.  Get up early but take time to watch the sunrise.  Work hard but at the end of the day cuddle up in the easy chair with the one you love. 

A hard winter

The feist and I took a walk to scout out a local trout stream and hunt some shed antlers.  The first hour or two was frustrating as we found nothing but shallow holes housing six inch Brookies.  Thereafter we started to see that there actually were a few holes where a man might be able to catch some decent sized fish.  An eighteen inch trout could be seen in one six foot deep hole.  He was chilling there without a care in the world.

I did wander off a few times to check out the surrounding area.  This part of spring, before the grass and brush really start to grow, is one of my favorite times of the years to tramp through creek bottoms and forest.  Winter's work is laid bare with the melting snow and not yet covered over with the green that will feed itself off of the remains of things made dead. 

Contrary to the message in Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians, the "the center of Jack Frost is not playfulness or fun but rather the starvation and death which sustains life.