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.