Watching the spring come

I have retired; technically, as of tomorrow, though my last work day was yesterday.

Lazily reading in bed, I see through my back bedroom window, through the naked branches of big maples, bright sunshine on the snow amidst the underbrush on the opposite hillside, beyond the creek.

This morning it was six degrees, Fahrenheit, at daybreak, and now it is twenty-seven at 2:45 pm.

It is the last day of February, 2015, an exceptionally cold month of an exceptionally cold but late starting winter.

For the first time in many years, I can watch the spring change nature.