March 25: Dogwood Monday, Week 2

Spring Break comes to a halt tomorrow and we return to school.  Usually, our break is earlier in March but the vagaries of religious holidays conspired to schedule it later this year.  Then Hurricane Sandy made it shorter, as the school decided we would make up some of the nine days we lost to Sandy by shortening our usually two-week-long break by four days.

Most of the break was cold and nearly half of it was cloudy.  There was snow and sleet.  In keeping with that unhappy theme, today's forecast calls for measurable snowfall.  When I look through the pictures I made last year at this time, I see a much greener world.  In 2012, we had an early spring with daffodils, azalea blooms and green leaves on the dogwood by the last week of March.  That is not the case this year.

This year, the end of March finds us barely creeping to warmth and sunlight.   At times, the pace seems so slow that I despair of Spring's arrival.  Under the circumstances, the dogwood tree, though surely doing its best, is not moving with any sort of haste.  Its buds are tightly curled against the snowy cold.  

I understand the feeling.