Real Talk!

We’re currently experiencing quite a slushy downfall. Yup, it’s gone from rain to snow. YUCK. Now, the trees are laden with glossy coats of ice and some are so heavy, they are leaning over, desperately. Reminiscent of the ice storm in January of 1998, this is not how I imagined spring.

We have been waiting for horrendously large snow banks and drifts to melt down, to make it easier to show property. Certainly, some brave souls have managed to make their way around enough that there have been sales. Some very significant sales. However, this past week, things began to look far more promising…with bits of grass showing through the white…

This has been a winter that we will remember. This has been a winter of multiplicities. A winter in which some have felt like shut-ins, worried about dangerous walking conditions on accumulated ice. I’ve heard of more fractures than I could count. More people experiencing the seasonal blues, lack of sunlight, vitamin deprivation, trouble sleeping, large heating bills, aching muscles from the shovel.

It also has been a winter that re-inspired winter play- there have been more skiers, more snowmobiles, more snowshoes, ice fishing huts… and the list goes on. It really is quite beautiful, that pristine white, the crisp air, the way it all sparkles.

Then, this, a dreary time of year: when the snow is dirty with mud and remnants from the continuous sanding the roads have gotten, between plows. Nothing quite green, no buds to speak of, just the odd sunny day that smells like spring, the warmer moments that touch the skin and bring a collective sigh- the anticipation of summer: gardening, swimming, motorcycling, sailing, berry picking, rock collecting, hiking…

Perhaps in celebration, the phones have started ringing off the hook, as they say. Properties, dormant for months, are now getting several offers at a time. We are busy with people wanting a break… an escape, from the city. Who can blame them? This winter has brought us a different sort of cabin fever. Or perhaps, different sorts of cabin fever.

We know a cabin can and should be heaven.

& who doesn’t deserve a quiet piece of the country? A place where the voices of birds out-sing the sounds of engines running, a place in the trees, where you can imagine a different kind of world- a simpler world, where messages are written in the tracks that animals leave behind.