Waking up

Last week my daughter Anna said to me:  "Mommy, the earth has been asleep under its blanket.  Now the snow blanket is going away and the world is waking up!?  (Sometimes it takes a child to remind us exactly WHY we have the expression "a blanket of snow.")  Last weekend it looked as if the earth had pulled the blanket back over its head and gone back asleep,  since we had a couple of inches of snow and the temperatures were way below freezing.  Today, however, the sun is out, water is dripping steadily from the roof, and the ice sheet that is covered the yard and garden since January is again shrinking.  Spring is coming, slowly and unsteadily, and the earth is waking up.