The Bunny visited this morning, Easter Sunday. I took it as a sign of renewal and a good omen of the rapid melt ahead.
The animal in my yard is a snowshoe hare, actually, formally known as Lepus americanus, subspecies dalli. The hare has had an obvious presence for several weeks, and its tracks cover much of the side yard and the woods beyond. It's a noisy eater. In the still-chilled morning air, I can often hear the crunch while it nibbles on the bark of felled birch and poplar trees. The animal's coat has been changing recently. Brown streaks have started to show on its back. By June the transformation will be complete, and its summer camouflage will make it nearly impossible to see among the new foliage.
Winter has dragged on, or at least it seems so. The New Year brought an extended chill, sixty below in some spots, followed by a bizarre, 110-degree spike to the plus mid-50s for a few days in mid-January. A few weeks later, light in the sky lingered at 5 PM, and locals' moods improved, despite more deep-freeze. It was a tease. Mid-February and March brought a lot of snow for these parts, and the gray days were a bit of a let-down.
Now, though, there's a glow in the northern sky at midnight, and soon the stars will disappear completely until mid-August. The Northern Lights made a few rare, late-winter appearances, but any chance of seeing them at all this season will evaporate with the coming midnight sun. For the moment we cope with break-up, where the snow turns rotten, and the hard-pack in the driveway and on secondary roads transitions to ice, then a muddy slush, and finally sustenance for the new shoots of wildflowers and grasses. Already the tips of ubiquitous willows are turning a purplish-red as they come back to life after a long, deep slumber. Like the hare's coat, signs of spring are everywhere. As if finally given permission, we can breath sighs of relief.
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