One day I was walking the bare pavement of the canal trail and the next I was putting cleats on my boots just to retrieve my trash and recycling bins after mixed precipitation left a crusty layer over the yard and driveway.

Actually I just pulled one of the bins back to the garage. A neighbor saw my slow progress and came over to bring down the other.

Since I had on all of my winter gear, I decided to take seed out to the birdfeeder. I banged an ice chopper into the snow as I stomped my way into the yard, leaving behind a messy trail of snow and ice chunks.

Then I tossed some ice melt on the sidewalk and pushed the snow off the front porch. At the first scrape of the shovel across the boards, a rabbit bolted from underneath and took off around the house.

This weather was a far cry from the mild temperatures we’d experienced a short time before that inspired my next-younger sister to use her battery-powered chainsaw to cut up one of the sumac trees that the wind had knocked down earlier in the season.

On that warm day, it was hard to imagine putting on snowshoes to cross the yard, but things change quickly.

With the crust making for uncertain footing, it was time to use the snowshoes. The compost bin needed to be dumped and the birds fed. It took a few minutes, but I managed to get the straps snapped in place and make my slow way to the compost pile, moving more confidently as I headed to the birdfeeder.

On my return trip, I saw the empty suet feeder hanging from the clothesline and thought I should put in another suet cake. I took off my snowshoes and began pulling in the clothesline. An icicle that stretched from the upper to the lower line hit the pulley, stopping progress. I banged the icicle into the pulley until the lower part dropped off, then started pulling on the line again. All was going well until the remaining bit of ice hit the clothesline separator and refused to move.

That project had to wait for another day.

The suet has been a challenge this year. The clothesline that ran between the deck and a large nut tree for several years was our usual place to hang the suet, but the line stopped moving sometime last year and accessing the problem pulley required a taller ladder than we own. My niece’s husband attached a new clothesline in the former location, going from the back of the house to the pole that stands near the barn foundation.

I hung a suet cake on the clothesline in January and it sat there unnoticed until I moved it to the shepherd’s hook opposite the birdfeeder. The birds began feeding on it and the hot pepper apparently kept the squirrels away. When it was gone, I put out a second cake. A squirrel must have noticed that this one didn’t include hot pepper, knocked down the feeder and stole what remained of the cake. The suet went back on the clothesline and a woodpecker landed on it as soon as I put out a fresh cake.

Anyway, I lifted the empty cage off the line on my next trip back from the birdfeeder, dropped in a fresh cake and put it out again.

This time, the chickadees were ready to take the first bites.

As for me, it was time to get out the roof rake. We might be inching our way closer to spring, but it’s not here yet.