We’re at that point of the winter when the sounds of snow blowers and snow plows in the morning signal dejection rather than thrill. It snowed. Again.

It’s been months since I could drive around town and see oncoming traffic before entering an intersection, or throw a shovel full of snow high enough to have it land on top of the drift at the bottom of my driveway, or make it out to refill the bird feeder.

We’re at that point in winter when the snow on the ground is rarely white. Most of the time it’s steel grey, or at best the same color as the sky: the color of dead fish eyes. Even the leafless trees have lost their brownness and have slipped into some grey-brown state that tells you their souls have gone elsewhere.

Three more months of snow. Four till there’s any color. And “spring break” is just 6 weeks away, ready to mock me with it’s stunning lack of spring and its equally stunning lack of break.

Of course, the neighborhood children seem to be quite content. Some of the drifts have been hollowed out by industrious children, the 5-foot banks looking like hills inhabited by hobbits — little round doors and little round windows letting little round people in and out with their steaming mugs of cocoa. So maybe they woke up to the sounds of the plows and thrilled, for the umpteenth time this winter, to the idea of new-fallen snow.