Monday, March 18, 2024

Watch out for the Equinox, Vernal!!

I hope everyone, or at least the good folks, had a Happy St. Patrick’s Day and enjoys the first day of Spring tomorrow (local time) or Wednesday (UTC). To celebrate the arrival of Spring, the weather forecast calls for a cumulative foot or so of snow beginning later this week. I’m glad I left the back blade on the tractor and haven’t put away the winter parka yet. Sigh!!! But we need the moisture.

photo of railing, fields and trees under 6 to 8 inches of snow
is this what Spring 2024 will bring?
Photo by J. Harrington

The dogs got their annual check-up at the vet’s this morning. A few weeks ago, I found one tick on me and spring brings mosquitoes (eventually) and the possibility of heartworms. The monthly tick and heartworm pills start later this month, probably after the snow melts.

In the present moment, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, but the mid-afternoon windchill is 24℉. Nevertheless, one of the folks up the road apiece just reported a bear on their patio. Some things are acting seasonally, but it looks like it would make as much sense to anticipate either the spring or summer weather patterns as to guess the next national political or economic event.

At least I’m sitting in a reasonably warm house, with two reasonably healthy dogs, one reasonably healthy spouse, and the start of a list of presents to be requested for an up coming birthday and father’s day. Things could be worse. I’m not trying to cover collateral for a half a billion dollar bond with a reputation for not paying my bills hanging around my neck.


Instructions on Not Giving Up


More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.



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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

May you enjoy the luck of the Irish

The Irish soda bread has been baked, and partially consumed. Corned beef and cabbage are on the back burners of the stove. I’m wearing a dark green chamois shirt over a light green t-shirt over jeans over dark green socks and olive shoes. When I finish posting this, the latest Altan CD will be set to play on the stereo system. St. Patrick’s Day even brought a few snow showers this morning to remind us that we’re in the North Country, not on the Emerald Isle, more’s the pity.

I’ve been skimming through internet material on fly-fishing in gleeful anticipation of warmer, less windy, days soon to be spent along a local trout stream where I hope to enjoy “the luck of the Irish” as I watch the greening of the countryside around here. With the temperatures forecast for this week coming, I’m grateful and lucky to have a couple of warm, Irish fisherman’s knit sweaters to wear and expect to wait for the greening to prevail.

picture of twigs with emerging leaves and raindrops
soon our trees will again begin wearing their green
Photo by J. Harrington

We’re at a time of year when normal high temperatures reach the mid-40s as night-time lows drop into the upper 20s. That’s pretty much what next week looks like, with mixed precipitation late in the week. After all, we’re rapidly nearing the “April showers” time of year. Sounds good to me. Now, please enjoy an Irish poem about trout fishing. It says much about why we spend the time we do trout fishing or wishing we were. Apples of silver or gold are magical and we are lucky to have an opportunity to pluck them.


The Song of Wandering Aengus


I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.


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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.