Photo: An ugly shot of my back porch, which is an ugly mess of melting snow, mud brought up from the dogs and the humans trying to get to the chickens, and other detritus. Just a mess. An ugly shot of a place dearly missed all season. All of my favorite writing places are currently inaccessible.

---

A few weeks ago, we got a Big Snow and I was a woman both busy gathering but also elated. Big snow in Maryland means time suspended because we’ll clean it up but we are unhurried to do so. In Massachusetts, big snow didn’t necessarily mean suspended time and if it did, it meant, like, one day. A day of hurrying up to get it back together because kids and people and stuff were expected to continue despite the snow. I loathed this down to my marrow. But anyway, I no longer suffer that place.

Big snow = time suspended = cozy cook and work in pajamas and sleep a little later. I gathered food enough to keep growing teens reasonably satiated for 5 days and reminded everyone that the snacks needed to last and “there is no instacart, no doordash. Nothing is coming down the driveway for a few days, so be cool and be thoughtful!” And we were while school was closed for 4 whole days and on the 5th day, we had a 2 hour delay. The world was blanketed with what we’ve come to call “the snowcrete” because lots of snow came down and then it froze solid in place and it didn’t melt for 2 weeks. The snow that’s in the above picture is the snow that fell in January. It’s been holding on, refusing to go anywhere, an inevitable obstacle and inconvenience at every turn, in every place.

This all an important setup because I want to emphasize how much I joyfully anticipated the snow, reveled as it fell and blanketed the home, enjoyed the suspension of outside life as snow day after snow day was announced. I admit my privilege of being able to stock up my fridge, feed my family without needing to leave the house, and having teen boys who were just as delighted to sleep until noon and play video games without interruption (except for food) until midnight. If my kids were younger, I would have pulled out my hair. If our finances were different, I would have sweated every ingredient of every meal, kept the house as a lower temperature. But I didn’t. It was a delight.

The only folk who were struggling during this time were our chickens (cooped up in the coop. We got a heated water bucket to keep the coop warm and the water unfrozen) snd the dogs, who enjoyed playing in the deep snow when it was powdery and then quickly learned to hate the snow when it turned solid and slippery. Pooping quickly turned into a situation, a situation that has lasted.

And so, of course, schools eventually opened even though temperatures remained in the single-digits and ice was everywhere. We bucked up and went. The dogs pooped in the yard. The chickens came out of the coop to peck at their feed and run back inside. They left us a few precious eggs, that froze before we could collect them.

And we all waited for the thaw.

Which arrived. Is arriving? Above-freezing temperatures blinked in our direction last week, but now are arriving in earnest. 50s! Balmy 50s! Rain falling today instead of snow and then more sun and 50s next week! The bold wear short sleeves! The rest of us are content with lighter jackets. And the snow, it recedes… and leaves the muddy, muddy mess behind.

It’s lamentable, the mess. Terrible to behold. Worse to traverse.

What not long ago represented privileged elation and rest is melting away, revealing mud and poop and detritus that must be navigated, that must be cleaned, that must be repaired.

The dogs are testing to see if they can still poop wherever they want (no) and testing to see if I am willing to wade out into the mud and detritus to preventing them from doing so (augh, no? But yes.). Did they contaminate all the places where I want to garden this spring and summer? Possibly. Quite possibly. So frustrating!

The pillows and cushions on the backyard furniture that we should have brought in are emerging from under the snow piles, wet and damaged and covered in some other unidentifiable poop, likely from birds that passed over. Our lovely shade umbrella has somehow lost its pieces and, though it stands, is otherwise unusable. I don’t even know how it broke or why it broke in the place where it did.

It’s going to have to get cleaned up. All of it. Hopefully with a little help from the rain that’s coming, and the sunshine that will help the mud dry up… and then yeah, a little sweat and a few weeks of backaches as we get things back into shape and retrain the dogs and clean out the chicken coop (oh gods, the chicken coop).

And yet, and yet: for all the ugliness and all of the frustration and all the “it’s not spring yet, but it will be eventually…” I can still get excited because:

everything on the porch can be cleaned and dried. The dog poop can be cleaned up. The ground mediated. The coop will be cleaned, that poop used to fertilize all the stuff I want to grow. There will be green and birdsong and writing…

…and I’ll have a moment when I’ll remember when the snow really was a menace and the cold made everything miserable and the winter simply felt unending. But the moment will pass as the breeze tickles my brow and the sun warms my skin.

Hal Borland wrote, “no winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn.”

We’ve gained so much sunlight this month. Have you noticed? There is so much to see, so much to notice, so much to dream of and prepare for. The additional light illuminates what all that needs doing. There is extra daytime for us to lament but that means there is also time to begin the planning and the fixing and the doing and energy to see to it.

So much of what has plagued us this winter is receding, retreating even. Yes, it is also transforming into new problems, differently problems, horrible problems. Problems we must confront before contamination spreads. Yes, it reveals ugliness–things that must be cleaned, things that must be repaired, things that must be replaced.

The transition from winter to spring isn’t beautiful. It is work. Work that can’t be skipped, just like spring itself.

This winter will end.

Are you ready for the spring on the way?