JanThaw, N-sized stream

From the kitchen porch, I could hear the thaw, that hallowed warming trend in January that gives us a taste of spring during the first full month of winter. Of course, the timing was off, since, by tradition, the temporary season-breaking warmth isn't supposed to arrive for at least another week and, in truth, right now there really isn't much to thaw. To be sure, until the heavy rains arrived last night and the temperature climbed into the 50s, there was plenty of snow. But the ground still hasn't frozen deep and with springlike thermometer readings likely for a while, this looks like the main thaw event; given our scrambled weather, maybe we're in for a January Freeze at typical thaw time. Whatever this craziness is called, the snow quickly melted and gave the streams their voices back. I even—I'm sure of it, but I never spotted the "singer"—heard the half-hearted moans of a Wood Frog, the species that truly "dies" every winter, only to enjoy a resurrection in March. I don't think that its return to life is anything more than fleeting. There's certainly more real cold to come—cold that will reclaim the stream and amphibian silence.