Some winters are best dealt with sitting near an open fire, weighted down by sweaters and blankets, and with a steaming cup of something nearby. Neither of us can recall seeing a single woolly bear caterpillar last summer or fall. That alone gave us a hint of what was coming. This winter began early and has given us the full experience, from frosty nights in the teens, to lingering snow and ice, to frigid winds. And still, the promise of spring awakening is poking up through the snow in our winter garden.

We didn’t have acorns or beech nuts last autumn to feed the squirrels and deer. And not even many berries made it past October. It has been a hungry winter for wildlife. Ivy, evergreen ferns, and Camellia leaves disappeared weeks ago into hungry mouths. Now the deer come to graze whatever they can still find green- Nandina, stray bits of weed in the lawn, and those poor newly planted holly ferns whose root balls I found beside their empty holes. The newly fallen snow on the patio was criss-crossed with deer tracks on Thursday morning, evidence of their nocturnal search for something left edible in the containers by our front door.

There wasn’t much left for them, and they may have just been sheltering from the wind and snow. The birds can explore for a bite or two behind the many pots and under the leaves between them. We hear them out there before sunrise, calling to one another as a new day dawns. Winter simplifies everything. have you noticed? It helps us sort our priorities and return to essentials, letting go of the rest, gracefully or not.

Views open up once the leaves are gone. Snow offers us a blank slate, pristine and expansive. Trees shed their weak wood. Muddy paths reveal the footsteps of travelers drawn into our garden during long winter nights.

It was well into January before I finally buried the last of November’s bulbs in the earth. There was a rare warm day. I brought out a cup of soaking windflower rhizomes, plumped and primed to grow. I had twenty brown rhizomes left, some Anemone blanda and some A. coronaria, and I had forgotten where I intended to plant them when I ordered them last spring. So I looked around and realized I could easily plant twice that many, given the opportunity. I sprayed then well with Repels-all to foil the squirrels, and now I’m hoping for the best.

Snowdrops planted in December and in past Decembers are already coming into bloom, a bit of encouragement much appreciated on this icy February day. More and more Hellebores are opening their first buds of the season and the first red flowered Camellia japonica is blooming up by the street. This is that magical time when spring asserts herself despite the lingering punishments of winter. It is worth bundling up against the cold wind to look for signs of growth and change.

Signs of spring have come a bit later this year than some. I’m behind on my pruning, but decided to leave the remaining seedpods standing a while longer for the birds. All things in time. I’m filled with hope that nature’s bounty will once again emerge from the earth, replacing what’s been lost, and growing into something new and beautiful.

As the sun grows a bit stronger each day, we see the trees beginning to bud, the moss spreading a bit, and bulbs pushing their way through the mud. Things are always changing, aren’t they? And each season brings it owns surprises.

With appreciation to Jim Stephens of Garden Ruminations, who

hosts Six on Saturday each week.