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Long Holiday

.

Yesterday the ice dam up on the roof finally melted.
Today Mari and I went for a walk in the neighborhood,
just because we could, and we wanted to celebrate
the fact that we took down the Christmas tree.

It is, after all, March 15; the Ides, the old tax day.

This year, we put the tree outside the living room windows, partly because it looked out over the river valley, and partly to keep all those needles out there where they belong.  And it also meant that we did not have to rearrange the house to make a space for a tree that belonged outside, anyway. 

The back lawn appeared for the first time in months, and it appeared that field mice spent most of the winter just below the snow, eating whatever grass could afford them.  I did not have a teeny little hay bailer, so I raked up the "straw"--if that be the term for short grass stems left about like undersnow tunnels. 

Not enough is said about global warming.  Here and there, it is a very pleasant thing.

It is not time, however to put away the snow blower; not for several weeks yet. 


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