It sounds like a hand-labeled cassette given to you by a friend, or found in an attic or an old drawer.

We have had a lot of rainy days lately around these parts.

It feels like it was recorded in a cabin in the mountains, a homespun recording with the tape hiss in the background to prove it.

It is filled with both simple folk songs and swirling psychedelic jams.

I pretty much live in a cabin in the mountains.

It is as likely to have been recorded four decades ago as four days ago.

With the exception of the giant eyeball UFO.

The songs of this album are full of pattering drums, dripping guitars, and falsetto harmonies. They make me think of the rain when I listen to them.

The cover art might as well be my own home canyon it looks so similar, all green-hued and overcast.

One of the best songs on the album is called “Rain on You,” and features the chorus, “Oh, how the days will rain on you.”

Um, Neil Young.

This is a great rainy day album.

See my pictures of South Fork from last week if you would like a comparison.

I am starting to branch out into the role of a woodsman. I’ve logged a fair amount time in such efforts in the past week. Last Saturday I helped some neighbor friends chainsaw logs and pile them into trailers. This afternoon I came home from work and made the first real use of my newly acquired axe:

This Saturday will be more of the same wood activity, but this time it will be the entire ward/canyon, and there will be several mechanical splitters and lots of people to lift and chop stuff. Having grown up in the city, this is all an entirely new kind of work for me, and I savor the novelty of it and the sore muscles it brings. I’ve not yet quite mastered my chosen tool, but I’m having fun. I think I’ve finally found an exercise activity that I actually enjoy (at least for the next week or so).

In related news, our seasonal patio pond has finally receded to the point that I no longer have an excuse to refrain from mowing the lawn, nor from other yard and garden tasks. I guess I have my work cut out for me.

Early yesterday morning as I looked out our window to peak at the morning weather, I realized that I half-expected and half-WANTED to see everything covered in snow, rather than the few rain puddles that greeted me. Looking at the situation “objectively,” I recognize that this is sickness and madness, but nonetheless it is a true feeling. We need one more good snowstorm to wrap up everything, right? Right? I’ve enjoyed the warmer spring weather of the past week, but I guess there is part of me that is just not ready to say goodbye to snow yet. And since I live in the mountains of Utah, I have the privilege of a long, drawn-out farewell. Some of the stuff is still slumping in the shadows of the north face just a block up the street from me. But that’s just not the same as the fat, fresh snowflakes floating around and piling up on everything.

Well, today I got my snow. Sort of. It’s not sticking to anything, and half the time it is masquerading as rain, but there have been moments of genuine snow today in Vivian Park. The pictures above document this phenomenon.  Right now there are little flecks darting about, but the ground is practically dry.  I guess I won’t get snowplows today (although they were forced to visit Vivian Park, and even that pleasant valley city of Orem, one night just two weeks ago). And there is the consolation that someone built us a snowman in the park just last week.

Perhaps the real reason I am reluctant to say goodbye to the snow is because I never finished publishing my increasingly irrelevant Spring Run-Off / Winter 08-09 Recap here at the Froz-T-Freez. It’s my vain hope that as long as there is still the occasional snowstorm, such content cannot be rendered entirely obsolete.

Also, if it stops snowing and raining all the time, I will have no excuse but to start doing yard work. The receding snowpack revealed all sorts of rocks, branches, debris and garbage on our lawn and driveways that need to be gathered up, swept and thrown away, and the lawn is already overdue for its first cutting. I’m also feeling the hurt now for not planting some new bushes and perennials last fall, but I’m trying not to dwell on that oversight.

As it turns out, I am asking the snow to cover up quite a few things, and not just mud and garbage. I’m not ready to come out of hibernation. I’m not ready for the change. I’m hoping to finish up two long overdue record reviews early this week, so that we can get on with the work of the present time. This is the Froz-T-Freez after all, so an obsession with all things frigid should not come as too much of a surprise. Nonetheless, nostalgia is just one of the items on the menu here; it’s not intended to be our specialty.

Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant and Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop, 2008)

I don’t know that I can honestly call the Fleet Foxes’ debut a wintertime collection of songs. A few unabashedly wintry songs are included (check out “White Winter Hymnal” and “Blue Ridge Mountains” below), but they also sing songs of summer, songs of fall, and, most of all, songs of spring:

What a life I lead in the summer
What a life I lead in the spring
What a life I lead in the winded breeze
What a life I lead in the spring

the foxes sing in a cappella harmony as the needle hits the groove on side one of the Sun Giant EP. So how do I get away with calling this a featured winter album? It is exactly this full-on seasonal frenzy that made this music so appealing on those days when our house was entombed in snow. It gave me hope in the eventual arrival of other seasons. The rustic, pastoral details of the lyrics reminded me that the natural world brings life and color, not just an overbearing white coldness. And also maybe it is more simple: despite all the hype, I really just became acquainted with this pleasant folk phenomenon at the turn of the year. Since then, many of these songs have become the definitive soundtrack to my winter. My wife loves this music too, so many times we listen to it together. And as for the winter influence, it’s hard to deny the complete appeal of lines like, “Come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long / Spring is upon us, follow my only song,” in the middle of a cold February in the Wasatch Mountains.

I mentioned hype. This album has gotten a lot of it, from the time of its release last spring through to topping a lot of end-of-year lists. I ashamedly admit that I ignored this music partly because of that hype for quite awhile (although since then I have clearly humbled myself), and I’m not exactly sure what I will write at this point that hasn’t been written a hundred times already. I could mention that this music sounds natural and organic in every way. I could speak of fine folk-inspired songwriting and impeccably arranged vocal harmonies. I could describe their sound as the King Singers collaborating with the Shins. I don’t know for sure if these things have been said or not, because I’ve been trying to avoid the reviews so I can write this without inadvertently plagiarizing anyone. I’ll just end with this recommendation: if you like the song “I’ve Seen All Good People” by Yes, you’re probably going to love Fleet Foxes. If you like Crosby, Stills & Nash, John Denver, Neil Young, Simon & Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, Peter, Paul & Mary, the Byrds, or Joni Mitchell, you’re probably going to love Fleet Foxes. If you like Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Bobby McFerrin, or My Morning Jacket, you’re probably going to love Fleet Foxes. If you like music, you’re probably going to love Fleet Foxes.

[By the way, this is another album that sounds absolutely incredible on vinyl. I know I said that about Microcastle, too, but I promise I'm not going to say that about every album I ever talk about. The vinyl edition includes the superb Sun Giant EP as a separate record in a gatefold LP, which otherwise you would have to buy or download separately. You will want to get your hands on that EP because its songs, a couple of which are sampled above, are as good as or better than those on the full length.]

Today is the first day of spring.

I was extremely reluctant to assert or admit any impending springness prior to today, but now I finally feel confidant in announcing the obvious fact of spring’s advent. This confidance comes not only from our calendar, which dictates the declaration, but more importantly from my personal observations of a transformation so universal underway that it reaches even our shadowy and recalcitrant location in Provo Canyon.  This afternoon I walked a bit of the way up the South Fork Road, and the sun was out from behind the mountain and actually warm enough I could have been wearing shorts.  The snow that had been everywhere just thirteen days ago is now mostly gone.  The creek is quick and full of water and there are large patches of moss and green grass below its surface.  There are birds twittering, there are insects in the air, and there are small creatures rustling in the undergrowth.

It’s safe to say that winter is now over without jinxing things.  However, I’m not foolish enough to confuse the end of winter with the end of snow, especially in a canyon.  We almost always get spring snowstorms on the Wasatch Front, even in the valleys.  I have numerous childhood memories of Eastertime snow in Utah.  Two years ago, if I recollect correctly, a respectable amount of snow dropped on the Salt Lake Valley one day in the middle of June.  You meteorology enthusiasts at home can go check the stats if you don’t trust my anecdotal evidence.

As I have thought about this coming termination of winter, I have realized something: the moment provides an ideal alternative resolution to my failure to publish grandiose and comprehensive 2008 end-of-the-year lists, synopses, and brag-fests here at the Froz-T-Freez.  Everyone else goes by the year; I’m going to go by the seasons, because it feels more natural to me, and it’s my blog so I can.  In the next few days I will finally get around to sharing more winter pictures, and I will be posting features on some of my favorite albums of this past winter.  The snow is melting and the creeks are filling up; the canyon has been overflowing with winter for months and it has to spill out somewhere.  What better place than here?  Think of it as one of those spring snowstorms: it may or may not make you slightly nostalgic for the winter, but it will all melt away in just an afternoon.  At most in a day or two.  Or maybe you’ll need to give it a good, patient week to totally disappear.

My desk, where I am sitting right now, faces a window that looks out to our back yard. I got home from work a few minutes ago and I came here to set up my laptop. As I opened the window blinds, I was amazed to see part of our patio bare of snow, and, what’s more, even a small patch of yellow muddy grass!

This may not seem incredible to most people on the Wasatch Front, who have had bare ground for a while now, but to me, here in the canyon, it is astounding. Our yard has been buried in feet of snow since December. We used snowshoes a month ago to go out there to check our propane tank and get something out of the shed.  Just last week we received three days of snow dumping, bad enough that one evening last week our neighbor, who conveniently for us owns a backhoe, used it to help clear out our street and even one of our driveways.

So I was somewhat heartened by this little observation of melting snow, and was sitting here by myself thinking that it was remarkable enough that I ought to compose a little sentence or two about it for twitter and/or facebook, when I saw movement out on the snow. My first thought was one of dread: it must be a rat. The shape I saw was about the right size for a rat, and we saw one living on and swimming in the river by our house last fall. I peered into the waning evening light and soon caught sight of the movement again. Standing right in the middle of the newly revealed patch of grass was a fat red-breasted robin, and it was yanking a worm out of the ground. In the few minutes since then, I have seen this robin flying around our backyard with yet another robin. I couldn’t see very well in the evening light, but I think my first robin was fighting the other robin for this precious territory. Now the robin is sitting in our pine tree, making quite a pleasant chattering and squawking racket.

I’m going to try to resist giving voice to the sentiment that no doubt we are all thinking right now.

They are flying around again. I can now see that one of the robins is smaller and not so colorful. There is also a definite call and response going on with their chirping, too. I’m thinking now that what I’m privy to is probably less a fight than it is a tumultuous courtship.

I’m not going to say any more until all the snow is gone and there are buds on the trees.