I hiked along a trail near town the other day when the weather was still in the sixties, this weekend has been cold blowing snow in the 20's, well it is Kansas and it is February.
The trail winds through old mined land, small lakes called pits, hills of rock called over burden, long since abandoned. Now they support a oak and hickory dominated landscape. 
Theses trees in the water will be the lounge chairs for turtles in a few months. Lots of sign of beaver along the banks, not many birds here that day. Black-capped Chickadees, Slate Covered Juncos and a Downy Woodpecker greeted me at this small pit lake.
Signs of spring! Ill be back to check on these to see when they bloom."I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy." ~Hamlin Garland, McClure's, February 1899
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Ahh! Spring is almost here.-I can almost hear those flowers begging to bloom.
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