February 28. The fog is so thick the horizon between prairie and forest, between snow and air, is subtle. I got in what would be my last snowball fight of the season.

March 7. The maple sap stopped flowing. The skunk cabbage is up. This morning, we sit in the open doorway, feeling the world wake up between the first raindrops of spring. Nitro, Peaches and Jeff pause in an unspoken moment of truce. They are not in pursuit of peace, they are just entranced by that delicate, ephemeral moment when the warmth of the furnace on their backs shares equilibrium with the warmth of outdoor air on their faces.

March 15. The sound of clattering ice wakes me up. It is being driven by a solid 25 mile per hour wind into the side of the house. Tree tops, unattached but suspended in the air since August, have been wrenched down to the ground. The precipitation vacillates all day between snow, ice, and rain. Spring lies buried under a layer of frozen slush.