Little cat feet....

The dog’s sharp claws make a staccato tattoo on the asphalt as she trots briskly ahead of me. The Flexi Leash is almost fully extended. She is able to sense how much tension is on the thin cable that connects her to me, and if I walk faster to catch up with her, she just speeds up even faster. On the few occasions when I have launched myself into a jog to see if I can draw up even to her, she has shifted into a gallop to make sure I don’t.

She often needs to be persuaded that she is not the leader of the pack.

I have given up trying to count the number of steps she makes to one of my steps. I can’t manage two counts at the same time, which I suppose is a good thing, otherwise I’d focus on counting steps instead of thinking about more important things, like rehearsing what I am going to say the next time I teach Sunday School... writing lead sentences for blog posts that never seem to get written...  

This morning a heavy fog has settled like shroud over the hills and hollars of the route we walk. I am reminded of the Carl Sandburg poem

The fog comes   
on little cat feet.   
 
It sits looking   
over harbor and city   
on silent haunches
and then moves on

The sun appears briefly as a pale, white disk. I can look directly at it, and then the mist swirls and it is gone again.

We walk around the pond just about every day. And today, for the first time, I notice a Red-winged blackbird...



arrived back from wherever he has spent the winter, flying into the large tree near the water’s edge. Its bright red epaulets flash briefly, and then it begins to sing.

It is supposed to be 70 degrees today, so although it is a bit chilly right now, there is no need for the knit cap, the ski mask, heavy winter coat, or the gloves.

The crocus have appeared...

their sweet lavender and yellow flowers pushing up through the leaf litter.

Spring is arriving, much like the fog on its cat feet… not quite as silently though, the birds make sure of that, but no one is quite ready to believe the winter is truly over.