Cool

After a week or so of hot weather, cooler temperatures seem here to stay.  Everything is still green and bright - the crunchy grass phenomenon that strikes late July is nowhere to be found.   The air is fresh, and itss always pleasant to be outside.

 

 

 

We have had a few days that have been a little too fall like for my liking, but in general, this summer's weather has been a welcome change for me  I do hope for a few more days of hot weather - the baby girl has cute clothes to wear!

Wildlife Count

Animals seem to be everywhere this week.  Coming out of the dark green woods.

This week-
2 moose (one within metres in the middle of the road)
3 deer (one just this morning on my run)
2 bear (one outside the windows at the community centre where I take Henry for playgroup!)
Countless turtles (it's that time of year - big and small, they are all over the roads through wet, marshy areas)

Trying

Do you ever have days or moments where you feel you are trying so hard, but accomplishing nothing?  My whole last week was like that.  Working so hard, but coming up short every time.  Nothing seemed to go my way.  Every moment of every day was a battle.

It's trying, and it tends to wear a person down.  But what can you do?  Nothing.  Just keep trying.

This morning is another wet one- nothing to do outside but go for a walk and take pictures. 

Everything was covered in raindrops, and the finest mist was in the air.

All Signs Point to Spring

I know that I have been spared this winter.  Wintry weather came on late, serious snow and cold snaps were few and far between.  There were strings of absolutely gorgeous days.  I fell in love with winter. 

And now, it seems, we are blessed with an early spring.  I know that there is a very real possibility of snow again, and everything will freeze up and grey days will drag.

But for now, early spring has arrived on Maple Lake.

As we waved goodbye to daddy this morning I noticed the chipmunks out from hibernation and scurrying around the front garden.  Several robins were up in the trees singing their "up, down, up down, up a little more, down again" song.  Last night I was out for a run and heard red-wing blackbirds.

I haven't managed to get out for a walk in the woods yet - I'm rather tethered to the ol' homestead having a one year old attached to me most of the time.  I have managed to poke around the house, though.  There isn't any new growth out there that I have observed, but mosses and other evergreen plants look particularly vibrant when finally free of their snowy cocoon.

My husband announced the other night that he "smelt it".  I said, "that disgusting rotten mud smell outside?" and he said, "no, spring.  It smells like eight years old".  How poetic.  And he's right.  What other season evokes childhood memories so sharply?  Spring is a season full of smells.  Some amazing, some...not so amazing.  Smell is the sense that can bring us back to times and places we thought we had forgotten.

I know we may not be entirely out of the woods yet, winter wise, and I'm bracing myself for winter's last hurrah.  I welcome it, though, and am loving the onset of early spring living in a place where I feel I can intimately observe the changing of the seasons.