“She says springtime’s coming, wait ’til you see It’s poking through with them shoots of beauty It’s the end of rent-a-movie weather It’s time to end this siege together” – “Thompson Girl” – Gordon Downie

The houseflies bump into window panes and buzz on the sill. The front entryway is covered in dead grass and dirt. There’s cat prints on the truck hood and the smell of dog shit permeates the air. The backroads are a rutted morass of mud and gumbo. The highways are coated in residual sand and salt, sandblasting vehicles with every wind. Eagles, ravens and magpies sit perched in barren trees lording over the recently revealed roadkill carcasses. A winter’s worth of garbage is strung along every available windbreak.

Everything lifeless.

A thousand shades of brown, from dead grass beige to coffee coloured mud, and everything in between. There’s nothing overly pretty about it, even the snow appears dirty in early spring.

Some warmth and the light we’ve been craving for six months is finally here, but now that it has arrived, its hard to find a reason to go out and enjoy it.

Us northerners will rejoice regardless because the skies are blue and the pussy willows are out, the first geese have returned, there’s crocuses blooming on the south facing hills and you can watch winter slowly die in the evening light.

Tell tale signs that things are changing, and the early spring purgatory will be short lived.