It's On Its Way

Spring, that is. I saw this guy (or girl, who can tell with Robins?) while trudging out to fill the feeders this morning, the first Robin of Spring. We still have a lot of snow on the ground, but today warmed up enough so that the snow is starting to melt off the tree branches. The Ponderosa Pines are, mostly, around 200 feet tall and they collect huge clumps of snow in their branches. These clumps solidify during the various thaws, freezes, and grow a little larger with each snowfall, so when they do finally fall out of the trees they come down as one huge chunk. When I'm inside it sounds like someone is dropping large rocks on the roof, and when I'm outside I feel like I should wear a hard hat!