from the Ninth Wave Arts caretakers

There is still snow on the ground.

Not everywhere. Not certain. But enough that the field flashes white in places, enough that morning arrives bright and reflective. By the time this goes out, it may all be gone. Or it may have fallen again. That’s how spring works here, never fully committed until it is.

You can taste it in the air, though. The shift. The softness coming. The longer light. Spring is clearly upon us.

And still, the ermine is white.

She has been making herself wonderfully visible these past weeks. Popping up in the middle of the day as if she has nothing to hide. A small white body against snow that is slowly losing its ground. Black-tipped tail flicking. Bright eyes scanning. One moment she’s gone; the next she’s upright on her hind legs, surveying the world like a tiny sentinel.

There’s something about her presence right now that feels intentional, almost theatrical. As if she knows her winter coat won’t last much longer and she’s determined to wear it fully while she can.

She moves across the drifts in quick, joyful arcs. Darts under the woodpile. Reappears at the edge of the path. Disappears again. It feels like a last dance of pure white winter beauty. A small parade of, Look at me. I am still snow. I am still winter.

Soon enough, that coat will shift. Brown will return as the earth returns. Camouflage is practical that way. She changes because she must.

But for now, she gleams.

And don’t let the softness fool you.

The other morning I saw her streak across the edge of the field with a mouse firm in her mouth. Triumphant. Focused. The same creature who pauses upright in delicate white is also a precise and powerful hunter. Beauty and ferocity in one small body.

That’s the dance, too.

Winter does not simply melt into spring. It hunts. It feeds. It survives right up to the edge of change. The ermine reminds us of that, that even in the most delicate season, strength runs underneath.

So we watch her while we can. White against thinning snow. A flash of winter refusing to slip quietly away.

By the time the ground turns fully brown, she may have already changed her coat, leaving us to wonder if we imagined that bright, bounding presence at all.

But for now, she is here —
a last bright note of winter,
dancing across the turning year.