One Day at a Time

Every day now, the countryman will remind you, is another day toward spring. If it is bright and sunny, it is a bonus day to weigh against the winter averages. If it is raw and blustery, full of snow or sleet or torturing wind, it is one more day of winter endured. Either way, it moves us another step toward April.

The days themselves are changing. When the year turned, the sun was in the sky only a little more than nine hours. In mid-February it will be there, visible or not, an hour and a half longer. And the night hours of darkness are losing their grip on the numbing cold. Until the middle of February, the nights will have been losing about two minutes of darkness each day, but after this period they will lose almost three.

Don't go looking for spring just down the road. All you will find is March. The vernal equinox is just weeks ahead, true; but spring isn't a date on a calendar, and it isn't an astronomical calculation set down in an almanac. Spring is a new sprout, an unfolding leaf, a blossom and a bee. It is brooks chattering across the meadows and peepers shrilling in the boglands in the dusk.

But first, winter must pass. And winter, whether it lifts you heart or tries your soul, still passes one day at a time.

~~~Editorial in New York Times

tapping the maple tree