Winter's come and gone

Today is the first day of spring. Man, was I ready! It felt like a long winter, probably because I was unable to do much of what Garrison Keillor recommends for coping with winter, which is to get out in it. I had indoor responsibilities, including cabinet building and bedroom remodeling, which prevented my even being able to clean up the garden from last fall, much less get a jump on anything.

That is, until this past week! As dark fell on this first day of spring, I found my early garden crops about 2/3 to 3/4 sown. So far, we have three kinds of peas (sugar snap, snow, shell), lettuce, spinach, mustard greens, chard, kale, beets, and carrots in the ground. Remaining to plant in the first round are the potatoes and onions, which I hope I might get in the ground this week yet. In two weeks, then, another round of spinach and lettuce. By then there will probably be a fresh, new baby around here. Just exactly what this spring needs!

The chickens sure know it's spring. They are laying eggs in full quantity, and I've been collecting for hatching. The plan is to fire up the ol' incubator just as soon as the dust clears after settling back in at home with the little one.



One day recently I wrote a poem about daffodils. Here it is:

They're At It Again

It looks like this year
is going to be no exception.

That is to say, the daffodils
have organized another pageant. Just now
they are working on the green
carpets, but I expect that soon
they'll be presenting the usual
surprise capsules.

I have mentioned
to them before that
not only have they failed to innovate
from year to year, but also that
each one is simply sending up
a variation on a theme (except that one...Oh, God,
where is it?!)

And so this March we will be greeted
with the typical array;
the same patient ceremony; a lifting
of the veils of Salome, endlessly rehearsed. And I,
on hands and knees, will crane my
neck and stare, trembling
with anticipation.