Waiting for Spring, etc.

March has been an "up and down" month, with lots of cold weather, some snow, very little rain, hints of Spring, and some days of mild temperatures. The snow melted slowly over the weeks, and now the lawns are visible, and need raking. One clump of daffodils near the house, protected under a shrub, has grown to show the beginning of buds. The ice on the pond has recently melted and the Red Wing blackbirds came back on March 7, when it was still bitter cold, and the pond was still frozen. Lately the robins have shown up and have been hopping around the grass, in large numbers. The redwing blackbirds can be heard singing from the tree tops. We have stopped feeding the birds because the bears are probably out of hibernation, and we don't want to attract them with food.

Barre has been checking on his seedling evergreen trees, to see how they survived the winter. Most of them did, thanks to a long period of good snow cover. The water lilies in the greenhouse are beginning to grow again and are under his daily watch. He is also busy with writing projects. I have filled my time with quilt guild meetings, and some sewing for our guild charity, as well as a quilt top. The days pass quickly, it seems, and I also have been on three "road trips" with friends (who quilt)-- our destination quilt shops, a quilt show, and always lunch afterwards.

We finished the UNH home hockey season on a downer--with our team losing the last two games to BC. Thus we could not win the championship of Hockey East. They have proceeded to the NCAA playoffs, and tomorrow will play a very strong team from Grand Forks, ND. We are going to watch that game on TV, and hope they win without us present at the rink in NH. We hope they survive the first round of competition.

Our latest news from Texas is learning that Noel has just started taking hockey lessons in a class of 5 year olds. She is the only girl in the group and had her first lesson this past week. All the equipment was provided by the pro hockey team, The Dallas Stars, and some players were at the rink to help the beginners learn how to put on all the equipment. There are about 10 children in the class. It will be interesting to learn about her progress. It would be fun to see her at the rink.

The calendar says "spring" and we are beginning to believe it. We got spoiled with three weeks of summer in Australia!