March 10, 2016

• Catching Up

  The weather has taken a turn toward spring in my part of the world. Crocuses have bloomed, daffodils have sprouted and begun to bud, tree branches are swelling with tendrils of burgeoning life.  The snow is gone and the mud it left behind is slowly drying. We are in that wondrous in-between time when the woods are accessible, after the snow has melted and before ticks, spiders and cockroaches emerge  and poison ivy takes over the paths. Just two or three weeks ago, the fire pit in the backyard was completely covered in mountains of snow, sticking up like an iceberg in a foamy sea.  It always amazes me how quickly the world outside my window changes with a slight rise of the mercury. Some morning soon, I’ll wake to unfurled maple, oak and elm leaf, yellow-green against a cerulean sky. It makes my heart sing. All winter long, I’ve been singing old songs in the shower: When I Fall In Love, Skylark, I’ve Got a Crush On You, My Funny Valentine, Mean to Me…  I think because waiting for spring is like being in a long-distance romance. I’ll have to change my shower repertoire to include Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life, Oh Happy Day, and maybe Tupelo Honey just because warm, sunny days put me in a Van Morrison mood.

  We were supposed to have about ten days of storms, but local farmers must have gotten together and performed an anti-rain dance because that weather has gone south of us with just a few sprinkles reaching this far north. They’ve written a Dear John to winter and got their John Deeres staged and ready to hit the fields as soon as they’re dry enough. That’s my cue to pack the comic books and beef jerky and take the first road trip of the year – a trip south to see my mom. And since Brett is still on sabbatical, he might even go with me!  I always look forward to stuffing my suitcase with capris and sandals and leaving my flannel nightgown behind when I make my annual spring pilgrimage to Arkansas. I won’t need a microscope to see the leaves on the trees there, they’ll be in full leaf and bloom.

  So, what have I been up to lately? Dog-sitting.  Krysten went to Texas for a week to visit her grandmother and we took care of Jack while she was gone. She had bought him a new octopus toy, although it only had six legs, so I guess it was more of a hexapus.  Boo seems to think every toy that comes into the house belongs to him, and the two of them fought tooth and nail (or claw) over the hexapus. I watched as it became a heptapus, a quadapus, a triapus, and after that I think it went directly to a zeropus. It’s now just a big stuffed head that no amount of heavy duty stitches can fix.  I felt so bad about Boo taking over the toy, I bought two new toys for Jack and put them in his bag so Boo wouldn’t see them. Jack got them when he went home.

  I’ve been going for walks with Brett and Boo and sometimes Jack. We’ve been across the field and to the park, poking around for places to hide geocaches. I have three caches ready to be reviewed and at least two more in the works. We’ve inspected trees, logs, bushes, posts and chain link fences in our search for cache locations. This village is so small and the residents so nosy and the children so curious, it’s hard to hide a cache that won’t be muggled. I’m not complaining, really, because I love this small town and the neighbors who know everything that’s going on and the children having the freedom to play throughout the village. It’s all part of the charm of living here, but it does make it challenging to both hide and find geocaches. Sneaky behavior rouses instant suspicions, and not being sneaky just gets the cache muggled that much more quickly. It’s a delicate balance.

  I’m getting twitchy as a hypoglycemic flea waiting for the ground to thaw and the temperature to stay consistently warm enough to plant herbs. The parsley stayed green most of the winter. I cut and dried some in December or January. I still have plenty of dried rosemary and thyme, but I’m getting low on basil. This year I might ask Brett to plant a new herb to inspire me to try out some new recipes. Maybe tarragon or sage. I’m so ready to put away the crockpot and start adding grilled meals to the menu.

  Well, I was hoping to get through more Winter Scavenger Hunt prompts, but regretfully, I have run out of steam. What I’ve written here took me two days to write between laundry, errands, dogs, exploratory walks, and trying to keep up with my online French lessons.  For today, stick a fork in me, I’m done.

  (Have you sensed the desperation in the last paragraph of every post, as I try to figure out how to work in the last word or two? I think I'll just start ending the post with a weird word. 'Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Tomato.')

   

  This entry has been brought to you by the following Winter Scavenger Hunt prompts:

  40. rain dance, microscope, mercury, road trip, beef jerky

  42. mystery, flannel, honey, long distance romance, elm leaf

  45. comic books, poison ivy, chain, fire pit, tooth

  48. hypoglycemic, tarragon, mountains, fleas, stitches, Dear John

  54. fork, cockroach, iceberg, tendril, regret

  • 8:39 pm
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