Winter to spring transition

The same thing happened this time last year. The deep snow has a hard icy crust on the top. Brendan can walk effortlessy across the frozen surface but with every step that I took I broke the surface and made what looked like elephant prints going across the garden. Lots of fun.
We cut a few little branches from the crab apple tree. In one of the gardening books we have out from the library it says we should be able to trick them into thinking it's spring and they should blossom. Hmmmmm. We'll see about that.