Last evening the sky was crowded with returning flocks of geese, making their celebrated long, straight and alternately arrow-shaped creases against the sky, joyously sounding their return north in celebration of the Spring Equinox.

And then, last night it began to rain, heavily, raining well into the morning hours. Out in the garden, on one tree, a robin, chirping happy in anticipation of the earthworms that will surely emerge.

In an opposite tree, the brilliant scarlet of a male cardinal trilling the triumphant return of mild weather and the disappearance of ice and snow. In the gardens, the snow and ice are beginning slowly to recede. The ground has not yet thawed but for the first half-inch; under that, solid frozen soil.

Also singing their huzzah! for spring, passing flocks of redpolls and goldfinches; and we, entertained and happily exuberant at their sight and exquisite sound.