Tribal dragon head and wings

The thaw came on Tuesday, all at once, and the lower field turned to a brown soup that sucked the boots off Dad's feet. He swore for a full minute, then laughed so hard he had to sit on the feed bin. I keep meaning to tell you how he looked, grey hair full of straw, but I think you'd rather hear about the dragon.

You remember the old tin sign that used to hang over the barn door, the one with the black dragon Granddad cut from a sheet of iron? It came down in the gale in October and landed face-up in the drift by the trough. Nobody could lift it, so Mum said we'd leave it till spring. This morning I brushed the snow off it with my glove and saw that the white gaps between the spines were where the rust had eaten through. Those white lines are only light showing through. The wings go right down into the drift like someone pulling a cloak over the yard.

I'm writing this at the kitchen table with the sign leaning against the Aga to dry. Its little round eyes look at me when I turn my head. Silly, I know. Ben says it's just rivets. But the nights have been so still that I half expect it to lift its long jaw and sniff the wind the way the ewes do before a storm.

The lambing starts in a fortnight. When it does, I'll hang the dragon back over the barn door myself, on the good hook, and we'll see what it has to say about the weather.

Love, Meg