To me, today felt more like the first day of Spring. On the heels of our ugly Winter, Spring hasn’t even gotten into the formative stage yet. The grass is still ugly and brown and full of the Winter’s worth of litter, bedraggled-looking plants and flowers still fill gardens, pots and planter’s boxes and what can you say about those big ugly piles of dirty snow that are everywhere? On a positive note, the local Dairy Queen opened. I’m guessing they wanted to compete with McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes that were all the rage the past few weeks. Today was the longest walk so far this year: 3½ miles. That is the same amount of steps as my round trip to Council Park Point including one lap on the perimeter path. So I am now ready to tackle my favorite go-to walking spot, but query: is Council Point Park ready for me? In early November I nearly wiped out on black ice on the trail and there is too much snow and ice meltdown yet, so I will bide my time and thus savor the first visit all the more. The sun sure brightened my morning and there were a variety of birds singing sweetly to greet me as I walked through the neighborhood and the sidewalks on the adjacent streets to Ford Park. As before, I saw the same robins trying to drill the frozen ground for grubs and worms and scowling at their failure to find any. In my opinion, robins wear a perpetual scowl. Spring is in the air and the squirrels were chasing one another up-and-down-and-around the big trees in the Park, running on pent-up energy renewed by the discovery of last year’s stash of nut goodies. Our neighborhood squirrel, Sammy, is either too pooped to participate in the pursuit of girl squirrels or he just prefers to wait patiently, positioned very carefully on the gazebo support railings, ready to pounce on peanuts as soon as my neighbor Marge tosses them out the door wall to him. Well, some things never change. He is always looking for handouts and he has found a kind soul in Marge who will share the love and the occasional fistful of peanuts. Above is a picture of Sammy from last Spring, sleuthing from his vantage point and wearing a rather indignant expression that says “c’mon where have you been – I’m starving?”