Last year Aki and I would have spent part of the morning on a cross country ski trail. It would have been cold, below freezing. Sun shine might have thrown dark shadows on to the snowy, forest floor. If we went walking the woods the next day, I might have had to wear boot cleats to avoid the slips and slides of winter.

            But this is a year of early spring, not winter. The temperature hasn’t dropped below freezing for weeks. No snow or ice touches the trails. No snow weighs down the branches of trail lined trees. Every morning I check the local weather app. It always gives the same prediction for the following week: wet snow or rain, low clouds, and temps well above freezing. Winter seems to move a little further north each year.