Not the first

Local tradition has people looking for the first robin of spring. This isn't the first I've seen but it is the first I have been able to get a reasonable photo of. I think that a few always winter here and on the first lovely days. even mid-winter like this, we pretend it is spring. True spring weather looks nothing like today. It is partly cloudy, partly sunny, partly hailing and windy all day. This is just a day designed for wishful thinking. A day for heading out to the local nursery and planning what you will get and where you will put it. Those things that you can't resist had better be hardy or you need to keep them close as there will be frost tonight and many nights before true spring comes. All danger of frost is past by the middle of April and some years not until the first of May. It is hard to wait having seen the robins, which we are told are the harbingers of spring. But I will listen to my bones and my head. I will read the calendar and not be taken in by my eyes and my heart.

But I still might sneak off to the nursery and dream of warmer days ahead.