This morning’s sun has strength enough to warm my face and soften the meadow snow at my feet. We stand next to a open creek with waters dark enough to hide the young salmon heading to sea and the few sea trout (steelheads) that make a propagation pilgrimage here each spring. All we see today is the reflection of Lion Head Mountain and a few Golden Eye ducks fishing downstream.

Later we will spot Canada Geese skulking under a spruce growing near the creek bed. For now the sun is enough as we follow the stream to where it cuts through a meadow on which spruce trees form evergreen islands.

The snow cover ends at meadow’s edge where Aki finds some interesting smells to investigate. Here the adventurous plants, no longer cut off from light by snow and ice swell in size and color, turning a rich yellow-green. They draw the eye as does the wine red berries that survived the winter, still attached to the stems that sustained them last summer—a sweet late winter treat.

Last Fall a sudden freeze trapped gas bubbling up from this shallow stream bed to form little ice bound globes. Today they escape as sunlight melts away their transparent prison.