Originally published in the March/April 2025 issue of Down Country Roads Magazine

What do we call this time between true winter and true spring? It needs its own name, because applying either label cheats these months out of their own unique charm. But if we are to be confined to those two descriptors, I’ll say this: It is winter, until it is not.

We may be covered with a foot of snow. Our teeth may be chattering against a biting north wind and sub-zero temperatures. We may be chopping ice and stomping around in heavy winter boots, in thick coats and hats and coveralls and heavy gloves. We may be shoveling snow and digging critters out of snow drifts, but winter is on its way out! The end is in sight. Cold days don’t last. Warmups are punctuated by frosts and snows, and cold snaps are punctuated with blue-sky balminess. The days deliciously lengthen. Everything – two-legged critter and four-legged critter alike – is simply bursting at the seams with pent-up energy, soaking in the sunlight, and new life springs up every time a person turns around. The barnyard, the garden, the hillsides, the sky, everything is stirring with an unmistakable effervescence, if you will, a scintillating energy. Spring is “bustin’ out all over,” as the old Rodgers and Hammerstein classic goes.  

There is almost too much to look at. The living room has been overtaken with the beginnings of the new garden – Seedlings stretch their little leaves towards the westerly sunlight streaming in the window, the optimistic beginnings of what will hopefully be a fruitful summer. Cheeping and twittering come from the spare bedroom – Tiny fuzzballs of chicks bask in their brooder box, where they are gazed upon by multiple pairs of eager eyes (one pair of human eyes, and three pairs of canine eyes), before they are moved down to the nursery box in the barn.

The dogs, somewhat content in the wintertime to hunker down inside, throw aside their hibernation for rambunctious play at all hours of the day and night, stir-crazy and insistent. And the barnyard – What a chaos! “The barnyard is busy in a regular tizzy,” another song goes merrily through my mind, “and the obvious reason is because of the season.” (Once upon a time, musical lyrics were actually clever and cute.) “Each nest is twittering, they’re all babysittering – Spring, spring, spring!”

Little calves, brand-new and knock-kneed, stagger to their feet as their mamas welcome them to the world, wet and sneezing and floppy-eared – What a beautiful sight! Slightly older calves race around with baby bovine bursts of laughable, haphazard, chaotic energy, giving the distinct impression that their gangly legs and their brains aren’t quite communicating yet. In between cold snaps and little storms, they sack out in the sun, dazed and darling. The chickens, sullen and peevish for much of the winter (not that I blame them) suddenly rediscover joy in those first green shoots they find in the yard, and the egg basket runneth over. The milk cow is in milk again, lavishing us with her plenty. My morning coffee is au lait again, and the sweet rhythm of the milking routine is followed by the sweet busyness of skimming the cream and making butter and culturing yogurt and salting curds to make aged cheeses, and the cats learn to love life again, too, spoiled and round with excess.

Spring, spring, spring! It is winter, until it isn’t anymore.

Everywhere one turns, there is evidence of spring. Bare-limbed trees set buds subtly, and the first little hint of green lights up the pastures, grazed down and winter-worn. Shaded hillsides, that have held on to a winter’s worth of snow, little or much, suddenly run with life-giving water, and we can breathe deep of the long-missed smell of good clean dirt. Even the winter storms that blow in lack the bitterness of a December or February storm, and in the snow there is a taste of springtime.

Fingers yearn to sink into the dirt. Arms are ready to feel the sunshine. Feet are ready to tread on green grass and soft ground. Eyes are ready for color and greenness and softening of contours. Lungs are ready for the sweet, warm breath of a thawing earth, the perfume of the first flowers. Ears are ready for the meadowlark and the bluebird, the sandhill crane and the dove, the music of running water and the gentler murmuring of the spring breeze.

It is winter, for now, until suddenly it isn’t.