Sights and Sounds of Spring?

This has been the most bizarre winter! Yes, I know...once again I'm complaining about the weather, but really, it's been very strange. Rain, snow, sleet, thunderstorms, ice, warm, cold..what happened to the first snow on Halloween, then frozen and cold until April?

Sunday was just such a weird day. The temperatures were in the 50s and low 60s when I opened the sliding glass door onto the deck. What was that noise?? Hundreds of blackbirds chattering in the trees along the creek! The drip, drip, drip of ice melting and falling off the roof of the house! The wind moaning through the bare trees!

These pictures show my yard. What two days ago was solid snow
at least 6 inches deep is now great puddles of icy water! The gravel road that I live on is almost impassable. The channel 5 news anchor on Friday evening reported that county governments were asking people not to travel unnecessarily on country roads as the thawing was making them muddy, slushy, slippery and treacherous. Crews can't get out to re-rock them until it dries up. In the north part of my county, rivers and creeks were out of their banks.

I did my part; I stayed home all weekend and didn't even venture out for church on Sunday morning.



But wait...there's yet another strange sound. It's splashing and roaring, and it's coming from the creek. Sure enough, even from inside the house I could see the creek that defines the western boundary of my acreage. It's roaring almost bank high from the snow melt. And in it I can see giant chunks of ice churning along. They bounce from creek bank to creek bank, first submerged, then bursting out of the water and splashing loudly back down. Great branches of trees and even parts of tree trunks flow by in the swiftly moving water. I can only hope they continue to move downstream and don't jam up at the bridge.

This morning I awoke to 4+ inches of snow on top of a sheet of ice. Winter has returned. Just let me whine a little!