Spring is possible !

OK...now it seems possible for the ground to thaw, for mud to transform back into soil and for green shoots to emerge from dormant roots, rhizomes and seeds. The past few weeks have seemed a little bleak, what with lingering snow and ice... but really when compared to the 11 foot snows they've had to endure in upstate New York, I shouldn't complain. Yesterday was nice...50-ish with the sun out...streams and creeks alive with snow melt and the rain that fell during the night.
I am reading "The Snow Geese" by William Fiennes. A Brit, recovering from a long illness decides to follow the snow goose's route from winter grounds in southern Texas up through the Mid-West and on to Baffin Island, where they nest in the summer. Wonderful, evocative writing. Here he is describing a pet of a new friend:

Saila was three-quarters wolf and a quarter husky, with the colouring of a wolf, and the figure of a Shetland pony: fourteen years old, lame, deaf, almost blind, her dark eyes swirled through with milkiness.....her legs no longer hinged at the knees:they were as stiff as crutches. Each step forward beat the odds, bucking a trend. She tottered.She moved one foot and waited before following its lead, as if to verify that the limb could support her weight....we'd walk down the corridor together, one step at a time, blind Siala listing from side to side, slewing into stacks of boxes. One morning she knocked over a box mark "christmas decorations" and stood confused in a spill of rosettes, pompoms, and paper-twist angels.