Busy week ahead!

• Tomorrow Daylight Savings Time starts. Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead!

• Wednesday is St. Patrick's Day, a very important feast day for those of us "of Irish extraction."

• Saturday is Spring Equinox, when the astronomical calendar catches up with the meteorological one, and those of us in the Northern hemisphere are again all in the same season. (We're not sure but suspect south of the Equator is a mirror image.)

mid-March pussy willows

Photo by J. Harrington

Between now and equinox we plan to keep our eyes open for pussy willow catkins. Meanwhile, we took advantage of today's unseasonably beautiful weather and cleaned out the martin / swift house and re-closed the drop front on each of the two bluebird houses. The fire pit got dragged out and we atavistically enjoyed burning some of the winter's fallen branches. We also spent some time cleaning up after the dogs. Why has no one that we know of figured our how to train dogs to clean up after themselves? Neither of ours can run the vacuum to clean up dog hairs either! We shouldn't complain, it felt great to enjoy being outside doing something other than walking a dog or blowing some snow.

Some of the neighbors must have felt the same. We saw walkers, joggers, bicyclists, four-wheelers, and a tractor pulling a load of firewood going up and/or down the road in front of the house. It's almost as if, other than the tractor, suburbia is catching up to us out here in the country.

We've still not seen any robins nor red-winged blackbirds although we won't be surprised if one or both are spotted around here some time this week. It's also reached the time of year when we bring in the feeders every evening to limit the temptation offered to local bears awakening from hibernation. They may not yet be up and about but we'd rather be a few days early than a day late with the feeders.

Near Spring Equinox 

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

A ruby crocus near the porch sends up
hope—winter of sorrow is waning
the dire moon of almost-spring rises
full with promise of renewal,
shaming twinkling city lights in its splendor. 

I search for my faith, wonder where
I lost it, find it in deep cinnamon
mud smushing up between my toes.
Across a spent field, a lake in shadow
serenades curvature of earth.
As if on cue, a comet streaks
across somber roiling river of sky. 

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