Fairy Spring

Otsego Lake, Central New York. Not far above Cooperstown, I found a place and made my way down to the shore of the lake. It has been unseasonably warm. The trees have given up their winter grip, and the ice along the shoreline has been refrozen several times over. It's mild again today, here at Fairy Spring. The place is named for the water that bubbled up under Natty Bumpo's house, in James Fenimore Cooper's book 'The Pioneers". But on this particular day, maybe we could say the whole scene is a fairy spring--a tenuous interlude in winter that teases us with the promise of the season to come. It is here in spirit, but it won't last. I've felt that false spring so often--the sense of restlessness, the blossoms of new growth, the heady scents and the freshness of it all. I feel like I go through cycles of that in every season...foolishly enough. It ends, it always ends. Whether with summer doldrums of winter snowstorms, a fairy spring seems always doomed. But I'll take it for today, and hope that when the real season comes back, the feeling remains.

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Filename: Fairy Spring
Image Size: 2048x1363 / 2.1MB; Otsego Lake Glimmerglass Cooperstown Central New York Leatherstocking New York NY landscape photography landscape lake ice shore Ray Palmer Ray Palmer Photography
Contained in galleries: East/Northeast

Otsego Lake, Central New York. Not far above Cooperstown, I found a place and made my way down to the shore of the lake. It has been unseasonably warm. The trees have given up their winter grip, and the ice along the shoreline has been refrozen several times over. It's mild again today, here at Fairy Spring. The place is named for the water that bubbled up under Natty Bumpo's house, in James Fenimore Cooper's book 'The Pioneers". But on this particular day, maybe we could say the whole scene is a fairy spring--a tenuous interlude in winter that teases us with the promise of the season to come. It is here in spirit, but it won't last. I've felt that false spring so often--the sense of restlessness, the blossoms of new growth, the heady scents and the freshness of it all. I feel like I go through cycles of that in every season...foolishly enough. It ends, it always ends. Whether with summer doldrums of winter snowstorms, a fairy spring seems always doomed. But I'll take it for today, and hope that when the real season comes back, the feeling remains.