icicles hanging

icicles hanging

from a red and white octagon --

Winter, STOP!

I know there are places in the world where snow never ends and places where snow is never seen, but here in the heartland of America, winter is capricious. Sometimes, no snow, sometimes snow comes and melts and piles up again, and sometimes snow lasts all winter. 
          I don't mind snow, especially squeaky, sparkly powder, but I am not fond of ice, especially on roads. But this year was the coldest in nearly two decades, with repeated arctic blasts sending temperatures plunging to double digits below zero F. "Polar vortex," they call it, and after weekly rounds for several months, we are more than ready for winter to simply STOP! 
          However, it was so cold on Groundhog Day that our local woodchuck stayed firmly in his subterranean nest and refused to emerge to see whether he even had a shadow, so we can only assume that we still have six more weeks of winter to endure. 
          On the other hand, I have been seeing flocks of robins flying through the bare trees and goldfinches are molting from winter olive drab to sunflower summer yellow. Like all things in nature, nothing lasts forever, not even the darkest, coldest winter. Right now, a robin sitting on the branch of our cherry tree is singing: "Cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up!"