Ode to the days of spring

I am writing while outside on a beautiful late May afternoon. Apple blossoms are sending their sweet scent across the wind breeze. In the distance I hear the faint moan of the lawn tractor belonging to my neighbour. Like me, he’s mowing grass twice a week this time of year to keep ahead of the growing madness of spring. 

My flower bed at the back door is teeming with all manner of colorful flowers, thanks to my eight year old grandson, Charlie, who chose all the plants on our trip to the local nursery and instructed me on how to plant them, “Straight in a row,” Granny.

I think spring is my favourite time of year and I feel about it the way I do of small puppies and kittens, and small grandchildren. I wish they could stay just as they are for a very long time.

Despite my love for spring, it comes with its creature features and of all those great and small that pass through my farmyard this time of year, there is only one I’d like to catapult into the lava spewing Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. 

I say that as I see a large black spider running at top speed towards my dangling foot. I stop typing, it stops running. I move my foot, it jousts to the left. I stomp my foot, it runs towards me like a steak dinner then drops out of sight between the porch deck boards.

Yet it’s not that hairy little arachnid or the wolf spider that lives in my basement, nor the pesky squirrel that continues its valiant attempts to get into my garage that I despise today. Nor is it the geese and goslings who poop-ulate my backyard, or the flock of pigeons that fly through cracks in the siding of my old barn and sit up in the rafters of the hayloft and make deposits everywhere.

My current nemesis is the oily skinned, nocturnal, buck toothed beaver.  I thought it was kind of cute the other day when I stood watching him swim out of the creek, loaf up onto shore at my neighbour’s place and haul away branches from a downed tree. In fact I admired the beaver’s determination to carry off the feat. 

It was all fun and games until while admiring my own yard I look out and spot a grandiose patch of bark missing off one of my lovelies. On closer examination I realize I’ve been bark robbed, with buck toothed etchings in the meat of the tree and a trail of shavings.

Yet as much as I would like to stake out a blind at the edge of creek at dusk with my slingshot and pop Mr. Beaver as he swims by, Father Time beckons me to choose otherwise.

The last I counted we only had 27 sunsets left before the longest day of year is upon us. Now I think we’re down to 24. 

Let’s remember that as we tag one another in the rat race of life. Slow down and enjoy the lingering evening light while you can. 

The funnies of spring

Have you packed up your winter clothes yet? I have!  

Out came the storage bag and the clinging dust bunnies from under my bed. I’d washed and folded all my summer stuff last October, jammed everything in the bag and shoved it in amongst all the other stuff I’ve got stashed under my sleeping palace. 

Have you ever opened a bag of summer clothes, pulled stuff out, cocked your head and wondered why you would ever wear that? I have. 

By the time I was done sorting things out I had five good summer pieces left and a big bag of good will. Then I spent a half hour trying to justify why I just couldn’t keep wearing that big old sweater and comfy heavy sweat shirt just a few more months, so that I wouldn’t have to go shopping for new clothes.

Have you ever gone shopping for clothes after a long winter’s hibernation of feeding on chocolate and cinnamon buns in order to keep that layer of fat in place during the bitter cold months and then spend an entire day wondering why nothing you like in the clothing stores will fit? I have.

Have you started using your treadmill again and counting calories? I have, too. 

And then there’s that spring-cleaning thing. I’m still out flying a kite and thinking on that one. 

Walking across the yard to go fly my kite, I’m sure I can hear the grass growing, pushing dandelions up into my world where eventually they will take over my lawn every day for the next four months.  

Have you ever wished you had a gardener, a weed man, and a landscaper? Oh, I have. 

I spent Saturday working outside like a fiend. I started it by pouring myself into a pair of jean shorts two sizes too small, slipped on my flip flops for the first time in nine months and believed for about five hours that I was 21 years old again. Sure, I got a lot done. I piled some wood, pruned some trees, raked leaves, made 16 trips with the wheelbarrow bursting with organic matter to the field dumping spot. My muscles pulled their weight, as I knew they would, and by quitting time I’d made some impressive headway in my neck of the woods.

Have you ever looked in the mirror after that very first long day of yard work, six seconds before you pass out from fatigue, and said in your Meghan Trainor voice—with a flat stare, “You must have confused me with someone else?” I have.  

I could not bend over for fear of never standing up straight and I couldn’t sit down because I definitely would not have got up again—and the skin between my big toe and the second one on both feet felt like I’d taken a lit match to it after squeezing those digits around the flip flop toe band.  

Have you laughed hysterically, feet on fire, fingernails dirty with Mother Earth and your whole body in need of a good hot soak in the tub, convinced that you’re getting too old for this? Me too.

But like the sign says, “I’d stop eating chocolate, but I’m no quitter.”