I stood in the backyard next to the Big Pond in my black rain boots with the rainbow-colored polka dots, feeling my feet sink into the rain-soaked dirt under the winter-brown grass. I push my sleeves up above my elbows. Today, it is spring-like. (Last week, the highs were in the mid-thirties.) The breeze is gentle with just a hint of coolness. The rain frogs sing from the woods in front of me. Tomorrow may be a washout. Today, I take advantage of the sun, blue skies, and intermittent clouds. Surely, “this is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

There are signs of spring even though we are not halfway through winter—the seventy-degree day, tiny buds of new leaves on the willow beside Gramps’s pond, thistles growing out of the grass, yellow dandelions in the front yard, the winter-blooming camellia, and gladiola stalks between the camellia and the rose bush—all harbingers of the spring to come.

And amidst these signs of new growth, there is still winter—the bare trees, wet brown leaves underfoot, golden broom straw, the dormant winter grass. There is beauty here in this winter world, too. Some of these trees and plants will be green and blooming in a few short months. And we will begin another cycle of life, death, hibernation, and rebirth.

As I walk down the powerline right-of-way from Gramps’s pond to my front yard, the ground gets wetter and soggier. Puddles of water invite me to step into them. After all, I am wearing my rain boots. I spot another gladiolus pushing its solitary way through the earth—and a giant ant hill growing into an ant mountain beside the rose bush. In the middle of the front yard are two bright yellow dandelions.

Up ahead, my husband stacks newly split wood into the racks to season. Work crews bury fiber optic cable along the side of the road. The mail carrier brings deliveries to the back steps, her tires crunching the gravel. I take the boxes inside and end my walk with a check of my phone and the need to pick up my pen and write.