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A lone Ring-necked Duck steamed across the pond Saturday evening, letting us know that spring is on the way.

The robins have been around since the beginning of February — about a month earlier than usual.

These snowdrops grew underneath the bench in front of the cottage.  Whenever we move the bench, we find some new flower that we’ve never seen because of the rapacious deer.

Here’s a crocus that bloomed today.  Jen planted them even though the deer eat them like jelly beans.

Another sure sign of spring: Sarah on her swing.

We were stuck in NY this weekend.  On Saturday I took Sarah to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  She asked whether this woman was looking at her cell phone.

I’m afraid we have only this PondCam™ image from this afternoon, since I left the camera battery recharging in the kitchen.

What you would have seen is pictures of some of the robins from the large flock that has been thriving by the house since early February.  You might also have seen, peaking out of the ground (until the deer get them), daffodils, lilies and other spring flowers that we ought not to be seeing just yet.

We had another unseasonably warm weekend, but some of us still chose to pursue the pleasures found indoors.

We spent a lazy Sunday morning reading.  Jen is getting ahead of Sarah by reading Harry Potter IV, while Sarah is working her way through a series she got at the Starr Library book sale.

We made ravioli Saturday night.  It’s a team effort: Jen makes the pasta, I make the sauce, and we collaborate on fillings.  In this way we can have thirds, all the while complimenting each other’s cooking skill.

Chuck Kelsoe used part (a small part!) of one of our fallen oaks to make this bench for us.  It weighs a ton.

Sarah went skiing for the first time today, at Catamount.  She was great at it!

Our living room is becoming a simulacrum of the farm.  We got the barn last weekend at George Cole’s auction house, and added six Breyer horses from eBay as an early birthday present for Sarah.

Here’s the real thing.

Spare parts arrived for the remote-controlled helicopter (my x-mas gift from Jen’s mother), so we put it back together and took it for a spin.  Sarah was skeptical that it would fly — but it did.  Although, once again, I sent it into a tree.  No harm done.

On Saturday it was 61 degrees, which would be very pleasant if it didn’t make you wonder whether the earth is hurtling toward the sun.