The snowflakes don’t drift by your window this time of year. First of all, what were once flakes, are on this day, pellets of freezing rain and they slam loudly against the panes, trying to get in the house. There’s no drifting.

We’ve done all the cute winter things: sitting by a roaring fire, sipping hot cider, shoveling snow off the deck. These things have their time and place, both of which were months ago.

The driveway is a sea of ankle-deep mud. The rows of artistically stacked wood have diminished to a pathetic pile of grungy logs which will never keep the house warm over the next few weeks if this weather keeps up.

I want to eat brownies and watch soap operas. I’m considering going shopping for stuff I don’t need.

Our yard, always the last in the Northern Hemisphere to give up some green grass, is still covered with snow. Yes, covered! I can see patches of brown in the woods and creeks show up where they have never been before. Oh, there’s ice melting somewhere in those woods.

The cat sits in the window and indicates that she is glad to be an indoor pet. And then takes a nap.

I’m sick of dressing in layers.

Years ago my neighbor Lester told me that if you put your pots of geraniums in the cellar at the end of summer, you can bring them back to life in the spring. I hauled them all up mid March and this year I have 17 pots with varying stages of foliage, filling my kitchen windows. I chat with each of them everyday and mourn those one or two who just can’t gasp their way back to life. It’s so hard to give up on any of them.

We did spend a week in Florida at my brother’s place there, weaklings that we are. We always go the last week in March, hoping a quick dose of sunshine will tide us over until spring finally takes hold.

We slathered our pale bodies with spf 60 sunscreen and cowered in the shade of a huge umbrella as the brilliant sun did its best to thaw our bones.

I always write in my little book the annual events that can be expected to proclaim improvement in the weather: ice out at the Retreat Meadows, early baby daffodils, sap buckets, pussy willows, and potholes.

One event that I have recorded the last few years is the return of the Jamaicans. These cheerful guys arrive every spring in time to work in the nearby fields. We have a standard dialogue: “Welcome back! Did you bring the good weather?” “Oh, sure,” they promise. And then we all get a good laugh, especially this year as they got a taste of nasty, nasty weather on St. Patrick’s Day.

But I know when I see them each morning, all bundled in wool caps and heavy clothes, checking the sap run and hauling out farm equipment, that not far down the road, in just a few more weeks, before we know it, there will be….Strawberries!