March 6 Block

As much as I complain about being done with winter, it's really the short days (thankfully getting longer) and the lack of sunshine (today was a delightful 'partly sunny') that get to me.  We drove into Illinois today to see Grandma who is doing as well as can be expected and better than I'd been prepared for.  There is virtually no snow on the ground there so all of the amazingly subtle winter colors were on display: the varied grays of the tree trunks with their beautiful silhouettes, the muted and waving grasses, the still tufted and browned cattails in the ditches, and the grayed black of the winter top soil with dried stalks waiting to be plowed under.  Maybe some day I'll want to fly south for the winter, but for now I still love the winter fields of the Midwest and the subtle beauty of the quieted landscape.