Summer Daydream

Am I getting tired of winter?

Not really.  I don't mind the whiteness, the quiet, the cold.

 In the fall, plants fade into a calming palette of soft earth tones.

Before long there is no colour at all.

Plants are hollowed, crumbled, gone altogether.

Winter arrives just in time, sprinkling us with fairy dust,

sweeping us into a land of enchantment.

We are so dazzled, the colours of summer fade from our memories.

Didn't the land always look like this?

But then, out on a walk I hear a burst of foreign sounds:

Quaaaaaaack, quack, quack, quack

Splaaaaaash, splash

Flap and flutter

Bobbing in the the water, I see greens, yellow, whites and honey-browns,

and the memory of summer rushes back.

There is sound, movement and colour, all competing for my attention.

What's going on?
Has summer melted the winter away?

Don't be silly, it is only January

and winter hasn't even begun to bite :)

The pictures above don't show that the water these ducks are in is surrounded by ice and snow.  They chose not to migrate and spend their day huddled in or around the rather small hole in the ice.

Maybe next year they'll make a different choice.