Weather or not...

 Ah, Punxsutawney Phil! I imagine you are a hero today to lots of folks who remember last year's record-breaking cold and snow, and who are already tired of being housebound by recent deep snows and ice in the northeast.  Early spring...six more weeks of winter...one thing is for certain: Groundhog Day lends a little magic, a little excitement in the middle of a season that is often long, cold, dark and difficult for lots of folks. What's not to like about the thought of an early spring?

Here on the Outer Banks, longtime locals have a saying: if you don't like the weather, just wait an hour or two; it'll change.

December boasted record-setting warm days. My little front yard crab-apple tree, which had already come through fall and shed its leaves, quickly put out a new green leafy crop, complete with tiny apples. Frost and thin ice followed for New Year's Eve, reddening the apples in what must have seemed to the tree to be the shortest summer ever.

A scant 30 days later, and the tree was in full autumn, its leaves an out-of-season golden. January rocked between overnight lows in the upper 20s and highs in the 70s.

Now the leaves are falling again, and I wonder, what will the little tree do when spring comes in earnest? I'm betting it somehow finds the strength to go through its seasonal cycle all over again, hopefully in a more timely and leisurely fashion than its recent ready-set-go, cramming a year's worth of living in the past six weeks.

My crab apple's saga reminds me how resilient nature manages to be, how hopeful. The air turned warm, and my apple tree responded because, as the Geico commercial reminds us, that's what apple trees do. They grow apples.

Seeing its response, I couldn't help but reach for my camera because I am a photographer. Clicking the shutter is what I do. One gift photographers receive is the celebration and remembrance of moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed. Years from now these images will be visual reminders of the summer-in-winter the Outer Banks enjoyed back in 2015/16, even if briefly. Even if it snows tomorrow. Whether we have six more weeks of winter, or are graced with an early spring, what was important in January shines through these reminders: nature's resilience, nature's hope.