Spring is off on one of Nature's tangents again. We've been greeted with nasty winds, icy temperatures and pounding rain. Certain to drive the last of the snow and ice from our wooded ravine. And flooding the creek into a smelly, muddy waterway swallowing the clay banks of its edging and carrying along flotsam and jetsam, rude and pedestrian.

Yesterday was daytime-dark, with thick, bruised scudding clouds obscuring the sky; rain so heavy that our house windows were partially scoured and the backyard resembled a mudflat. Our little dogs had no wish to venture out more than absolutely necessary to relieve themselves.

And we felt fairly out of sync with ourselves, unable to go out for a daily walk in the woods, confined to the house. Nature rules at her own discretion and prerogatives. Amazing how we assign a gender to her; assuming her to be imbued with many of the pejorative characteristics normally associated with females: shrillness, hysteria, intemperate conclusions, emotionally fragile, demand, vituperative, unstable.

Is that fair?