The sunrise sky over the Concord River glowed like a tutti-frutti candy cane this morning if you were lucky enough to see the brief display just after 6 a.m. At the South Common it was quiet except for a few people moving through on their way to someplace else. These weeks and months without snow have made it easy to walk the dog, but I wonder about the consequences, if any, of no deep freeze. A couple of more seasonal steps, Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day, and we’ll be looking at March and the exit ramp from official winter. After the weather beating we took last winter, maybe we deserved a mild edition of this season. What the snow-plow guys and ski resort owners gained last year, the nature gods pulled off the table this year. In our backyard, cardinals have been in residence since December. I never get used to seeing the red flashes in the branches. I always look twice.