Sunday morning, while I was sitting on a bale of hay waiting for the stock tank to fill with water, a robin flew up and perched himself on top of a fence post. He didn’t make a sound, but I wondered if he was the same robin I had heard chirping a couple of days before — the first robin of the season.

He sat there looking at me, and although he didn’t make a sound I imagined that he might have been thinking, “What’s up with all the snow this year?”

I’ve always looked forward to hearing and seeing the first robin of the season at Pipi’s Pasture. On Monday, as I sat writing by the dining room window, I noticed three robins that flew down and landed on a big branch of one of the elm trees. They sat there, heads up, beaks pointed straight out, and breasts pushed out. A little later I heard their spring sounds. No matter the deep snow, the robins are a sign of spring, indeed.

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Since then, I’ve heard the spring songs of the blackbirds, another sure sign of spring, and I noticed that a small lilac bush in the yard was covered by tiny birds that appeared to be chickadees. I’m not sure if these birds have anything to do with spring, but it’s unusual to see them around here.

I wish I could report that there’s a lot of melting going on here at Pipi’s Pasture. I wish that even more now since, over the weekend, my son Jody told me that they were “watching the snow melt” on a lawn across the street in Vernal, Utah, during a chinook wind.

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On my last trip to Craig, I also noticed that it looked a lot more like spring there than here, a mere seven miles away. People must think I’m crazy when I talk about the amount of snow on the ground out here.

However, I must admit that there is a lot of water standing in a low spot in the lane leading into our house. It’s not unusual for water to settle there during the mud season, but I have been a little nervous about driving through it. I gathered up my courage and sped through it on Monday so I could get to the mailbox across the road. As with the first robin, it’s a sure sign of spring.

When I returned to the house from my mailbox run, I parked next to a little patch of bare soil, and when I got out of the car, I noticed a little sprig of grass poking out from the dirt. It brought back memories of spring days when my sisters and I walked home from school and found a little bare ground in our pathway.

I must admit, there are a few signs of spring at Pipi’s Pasture, starting with the first robin.