In the past couple hours snow has been accumulating faster than at any time during the winter and it's been spring for three days. By now even the wildlife must be getting fed up. If it doesn't warm up soon we're going to have extinctions.

Mary spotted a lone crow shivering in the hemlocks. I caught a glimpse of a groundhog racing across the yard next door, running to stay warm probably. Back on February 2d, his meteorologically inclined cousin, Punxutawney Phil, upset everyone by predicting six more long weeks of winter.

Phil was wrong. It's already been seven weeks since the beginning of February.

I even noticed a spiderweb stretched from the corner of the porch roof to one of the nearby pines. Temperatures have continued to fall below freezing at night and it's hard for me to imagine that spiders would be out and around but one must have been. The web could hardly have withstood the winter. In fact I only saw it when the snow began to pile up on the strands, as if they were miniature power lies. Finally they gave way.

Or so I suppose. I didn't actually see the strands break. Maybe the spider got fed up, reeled the web in and went back to sleep. Until spring...