This Winter was a bit much even for the seasoned New Englander. It wasn’t just the record snow. We’ve seen a lot of snow before. It was the snow never went away, not even a little bit. It was too damn cold. The temperature refused to rise above 32 degrees for any sustained amount of time. So the next storm just piled on top of last like a Dagwood sandwich of snow.

Winter 2015 sailed right past it’s March 21st expiration date while a blanket of white continued to cover my yard.

At this point of despair I started to look to signs of Spring beyond the view of my lawn.

The two most sure signs that Spring has returned to Cape Cod are nesting Osprey and youth baseball.

Baseball came first with an email with the subject header, “Pirates”. Right away you know that’s going to be a good email. It was from my son’s coach alerting us to his first (indoor since the ball field was also blanketed with snow) practice.

The next was a Facebook post a couple weeks later from Cape Cod Museum of Natural History letting us know that the Osprey were back.

These two events made me very happy. They gave me hope.

And then this week I had the real proof of Spring. I was at my son’s baseball game on a sunny enough day that I wasn’t wearing my knit hat or quilted jacket. I was already satisfied with this beautiful day. Over head I heard and then saw a beautiful pair of Osprey flying over the boy’s ball game.

Spring had sprung.