Mar
17
2011
Spring was less than three days away. It is a beautiful day. The forecast said it would hit sixty degrees today. The sky was blue with hardly a wisp of cloud. I was tired of the cold temperatures. I am ready for spring. The daffodils are almost ten inches high. I noted yesterday that one primrose was budding. I was not sure we would have any. Hope was on the horizon. This long winter was almost over.
Feb
14
2011
It was fifty outside and the thin pine trees were really swaying in the wind. There was a dull roar in the background. It was a perfect day to fly a kite except I didn’t have one. This whole week promised to be above average temperatures. Winter was winding down and this week was a preview of spring. I just checked: daffodils are poking their heads out of the soil. Yesterday we saw pussy willow buds. I am, next, searching for the primrose that come up even before the daffodils. Winter is winding down. Spring is now in the air.
Apr
2
2010
I resisted the temptation to bolt. It was seventy-seven degrees outside–a touch of summer. I thought I’d go out and drive to the River. I then decided rather to walk around my property to see what I could observe.
The little creek in the back was almost dry. I really do not know where our toads that appear at our front door come from. Where do the polliwogs swim?
I noticed a patch of yellow and white daffodils in the middle of the woods. The white ones were a larger variety. Whatever possessed someone to plant them there.
I turned over an ten by six inch long moss covered log hoping to spot a salamander but no luck. Twice over the years we discovered four inch long orange colored salamanders in the yard. I know so little about them.
I noted two white hyacinths were blooming and I dropped to the ground to smell them. I had always loved their fragrance.
The raspberry and blackberry bushes were just starting to sprout. It will still be awhile until the white flowers come. And even longer before I pick the berries.
Then Lynelle will bake scrumptious berry pies that simply got gobbled up almost as fast as they are baked.
I wondered whether the Black eyed Susans which my wife planted along our hundred foot long picket fence will come up. I thought they would look neat there. It remain to be seen.
Every thing in its own time. I returned to our house. I will go out again but will not travel by car anywhere and see again what I could observe in my own backyard.
Mar
1
2010
Spring was less than a hair away–less than three weeks. Perhaps by then all the snow will have melted. The snow seems as if it was on the ground forever. Though it was only February and now the bare spots are bigger.
In fact, the daffodils have already poked their their heads through the ground. I checked today. The primrose can’t be too far behind.
I know the temperatures will rise gradually. Before I know it, spring will arrive and all this cold weather will just be a memory.
In ten weeks I will take my annual camping trip with Chuck. Maybe even catch some more trout on the lake. Who knows?
Though, I am still bundling up–even in the house. I don’t like to be cold. Winter is still a reality but I am now anticipating spring already and the warmer weather. I know it will have arrived for good when I start wearing my tee shirts again.
Feb
14
2010
Spring was less than five weeks away. I started my countdown. It was close enough to it. I do this every year. It is a little game I play. I am waiting for the warmer weather. The spring. The blackberries and raspberries I pick. My annual camping trip I take in May with my buddy. The explosion of life. The first flowers — daffodils. Everything. Every year I have a countdown. The winter that passes me and I endure just makes spring that much sweeter. Right now there is quite a bit of snow on the ground. I know in less than six weeks it will be all gone and the daily temperatures will gradually rise. My countdown is my anticipation of spring and what follows.
Apr
23
2009
It is so easy to take the weather for granted. Spring is now four weeks in. I no longer notice it is forty, fifty degrees every day sometimes higher. Somehow I have to stop anticipating the future weather and enjoy each stage of the spring.
The daffodils have bloomed already along with the primrose. The day lilies are popping out of the ground rapidly. The blackberry plants have sprouted. Now the leaves on the trees are budding and rapidly unfolding.
I need to slow down and observe each step of the spring, do not take any of it for granted. I still remember the winter day it hit ten below. Yes, the cold weather is not around as long as it used to be but nature has its cycles and I simply have to observe their daily changes.
The growths are really miracles and I should not let the spring slide into summer and not notice the daily changes. They are all miracles so do not say they do not occur. You just have to open your eyes and see the spring unfolding. So slow down. They are all miracles. Just because they happen every year does not diminish the true miracles unfolding every spring. Do not let them pass you by.
Apr
6
2009
I get so absorbed in the beginning of the day I simply do not notice the birds coming to my feeders. In the first few hours I am waking up. I really do not know what happens to me the first hours of the morning.
I am very focused in the beginning and can’t relax. I make my daily trip to the post office, spray their fern, check my box. There are always the pets I have to take care of: we have a menagerie–eight cats and four dogs. The dogs are always eager to go out and do their thing in the yard and they are none too shy about telling me.
At some point, my concentration switches. I have done the most pressing tasks and can relax a bit.
I did notice some others things earlier: I forgot that in the middle of the woods someone once planted a clump of daffodils. I noticed that they were white and also a larger variety unlike the others in our yard.
I also noted that the blackberry and raspberry bushes had new growth (I can not tell them apart this time of the year). I was thrilled to notice that. In June and July I will be picking raspberries and blackberries respectively. I can’t wait. The only downside, I attract ticks picking berries and they gross me out when I discover one on me. I just want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. My wife always wants to gently release them in our yard.
I still remember once 
last summer discovering seven ticks on me after one berry picking expedition and frantically shook them off of me. This year I plan to put repellent on me and expose as little skin as I can when I pick the berries.
My wife made several pies last year and I can’t wait to taste another one. I absolutely love blackberry and raspberry pies. 
Last year at the end of the season I accidentally discovered a gigantic patch of blackberries I did not know was there. I was trying to reach some berries and had gone further into the woods than I had ever gone and there it was. I will have to fight my way through a wall of briers but I will have more blackberries than I can ever pick. This time I will freeze some and give away more pies. Of course my wife will have to bake them.
To get back to the birds, who I do not see right away when I get up, sometimes I am not really here and I am in some different place and at some different time. It might take a few hours to settle down in the present and do nothing for awhile. Then I will notice the birds who come in a steady stream all day. I just have to slow down. And do nothing. For awhile.
Feb
21
2009
Spring is now four weeks minus one day away. Now it is cold and snow still lingers on the ground. Before we know it the first daffodils and primrose will come up and then the warm weather will start. This cold will be a distant memory. I am looking forward to picking the raspberries on my property and then my blackberries in July. And before we know it autumn will come again and the cycle will start all over again. Time seems to have two cycles at the same time. One turns very slowly and the others speeds all the time. Time is a vapor as the Bible says.
Copyright © 2009 - Siggy's Blurbs: Siggy's Edge of Country … | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
WordPress theme by 
9th sphere website design