Things Have Changed

I noticed it weeks ago when the birds, jumping at their harbinger responsibilities, started actually singing early in the morning. It was too soon. We were to have two more rather serious winter storms that mounted into heaps and heaps of snow after the cardinal sat in the top of the pine singing vernal solos at the top of his voice. Some of that snow needed to melt and the sun needed to move in the sky before I was ready to acknowledge the Change. A week of mud helped. If there was ever a season that I am tempted to want to rush through it is mud season. It is inescapable. It is so pervasive that it covers your car, your dogs, your children, your house, the road, every building you visit, your coat, your boots, and your shoes if you are brainless enough to wear them as outer gear. There are few places to hike. The snow is still too deep in the woods and the dirt roads are so muddy that you have to watch your feet all of the time instead of the sky and the beauty around you. The beaches are one of the only open places in mud season. The wind off of the water is still cold and there are still ice shelves in places but the beaches make for pleasant walking and mud-free dogs. Thinking about the work of Springtime is always daunting in the abstract. It is good that something changes inside of us when the weather changes. There is some natural inclination to start moving things outside and picking up the winter debris. Not because you have to, it is early yet, but because it draws you, seduces you, perhaps, into initiating great outdoor projects like "The Garden" and "The Yard", "A Few Shrubs" and "Trees". So, here goes. I haven't written much over the winter but I can guarantee there will less during the Spring. I will be outside.