Early Spring

Keith Wehmeyer

Photo 48/365

The tease of early spring, a glorious combination of mud, ice, slush, snow, standing water, brown snowbanks and road salt. Rain storms and Nor'Easters. Freeze and thaw. This stretch of Mother Nature's seasonal bipolar disorder is my least favorite time of year, only redeemed by the fact that my birthday falls square in the middle.

Heading home from work, I pulled into a muddy little turnoff near the Royal River in Yarmouth. I wandered around for a bit. There were a few holes opened in the ice that otherwise concealed the river. A colony of ducks were splashing in, jumping out, then accepting their fate and sitting on the ice. I shot them. Pictures.

With the temperature over 40 and the afternoon sun casting long shadows on the frozen river, it felt like spring. I know it isn't even close to it, but I wanted a picture to capture the feeling. I rattled off 100 or so utopian spring photos. Splashing ducks, running water, bright sun, but none of them worked.

Back to my truck I went, trudging through knee deep crusty snow and ice. And there it was, surrounded by towering brown snowbanks, slowly sinking into the newly thawed mug bog, reflecting in the watery sheen of melt. Spring. I can't wait.

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