Winter lingers on, but the peppers are planted.

It's March 5th, and winter still has it's chilly hand clutched tightly around my corner of Massachusetts.  Here's the driveway after I cleared away yet another five inches of snow this afternoon:

I've shoveled it myself every time, saving my back from the worst lifting by using my garden wheelbarrow to move the heavy snow at curbside. I'll be in great shape for digging the garden, if the snow ever melts.

Meanwhile, all the birds in the neighborhood come to my feeders, including a juvenile sharp-shinned hawk that caught a dove this morning. He spent two hours on the ground afterwards, eating every scrap of meat off the carcass.  He was clearly desperate for food, and I had to admire his determination to survive this long, cold, snowy winter:

I need to believe in spring, and so I started my pepper seeds last night, in a south window with a bottom heater. Peppers take so long to germinate that it's not too early, as long as spring really does come this year: