Spring, at last...I think

It was an absolutely beautiful day today- the kind that you dream about all winter long. Actually, in the past week or so we've had a few great days, enough to make me think that maybe spring is finally here. We still have snow in our yards where it piled up after sliding off the roofs. Most of the houses here have metal roofs so that the snow will slide off. There are piles of snow along side of the roads too where it was plowed by the state vehicles, but it too is rapidly receding.
There was frost on my windshield today when I went to work, but by mid morning it had warmed up considerably, and by noon it was uncomfortably hot. I think the forecast was for the lower sixties, but it may have gotten up to seventy today- at least it sure felt like it. I know that doesn't sound very warm to most people, but we have so little air pollution here that we get the full force of the sun when it shines so that seventy here might feel like eighty elsewhere- maybe more.
The sandhill cranes have been making their annual migration north. Wave after noisy wave of them have been passing over for the past week or so. You can always hear them before you see them. The robins have shown too. When they first arrived I was a little concerned for them; most of the ground was still covered in snow, but the rapid melt has exposed enough area for them to find chow I guess.
I drove down past the boat harbor this afternoon and saw two fishing boats hauled out of the water- the Caroline, owned by Jim Erickson and the Coronation, owned by Jim Dybdahl. The weather is good enough to start painting! It sounds like the sport fishermen have been getting a few king salmon, so everyone wants to be ready for the big run.
This picture was actually taken about six weeks ago. Elephant mountain is in the backround and the large building in front is Hoonah Trading and Ace Hardware. They are the primary supplier of groceries and of course hardware, and fuel. At the time I took this I think it may have been quite awhile since we'd had any sun and I wanted to record it just in case we never saw it again. Sometimes living in a rain forest can give an individual a pessimistic attitude.