There comes a day every year. A day when winter loses its grip.

A day when the wind vane lazily turns around and the breeze no longer cuts sharply into our cheeks, but gently caresses our faces and tucks the hair behind our ears.

It is a day when the lanolin of four hundred Romney lambs next door warms and mixes with the smell of freshly turned earth and the exhalations of the grass.

It is a day when we throw open the windows, though it is only fourteen degrees outside.

It is a day when we don’t worry that the firewood is scarce, when we can imagine a day that doesn’t start and end with a fire in the grate.

It is not spring. That day will come, but not yet. There are still weeks of kindling to split, and ice to break off the water troughs.

But it is the promise of spring.

And it is enough.