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.

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

Ada Limón
1976 – 

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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Please be kind to each other while you can.