Easing into warmer days

Yesterday, the first hummingbird of the year, a female ruby-throated, showed up at the nectar feeder. Today, I noticed an abundance of trees covered in blossoms, roadsides and medians highlighted with bright yellow floral accents, but no sign, yet, of Canada goose goslings, at least for me. The Better Half claims to have seen some near the Sunrise River pools during the past few days. Spring continues to triumph over winter in more and more ways, with ephemeral wildflowers and downy goslings still to come. Meanwhile, we’re still working up to getting this year’s fishing licenses. That’s next week’s priority, after we celebrate Mother’s Day.

Canada geese on a small pond, no goslings visible yet

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve been enjoying reading Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability. I got a copy through a non-renewable interlibrary loan and doubt I’ll finish it before the due date. That probably means a request for a copy of my very own goes on a list for Father’s Day or my birthday next month. It was very shortsighted of me to manage to get born so close to Father’s Day that sometimes all the celebrations (and presents) get jumbled into one. Our son out did me though. He was born on December 25.

Our major accomplishments for today are likely to be getting the first half of the year’s property taxes paid and using elbow grease and Bartender’s Friend to remove 80% plus of the calcium ring around the inside of the downstairs toilet bowl. One or two more episodes and the remains should end up just about invisible. It had gotten to be a continuing point of annoyance to get the bathroom essentially clean but still have that stain staring up at us. Hard water, even with a good softening system, can be a pain to live with.

As you can see from today’s report, one of the problems with retirement is you never get a day off. We’ll just try to make the best of it that we can, for as long as we can.

First Warm Day in a College Town

Beth Ann Fennelly
1971 – 

Today is the day the first bare-chested
          runners appear, coursing down College Hill 
                      as I drive to campus to teach, hard 

not to stare because it’s only February 15, 
          and though I now live in the South, I spent 
                      my girlhood in frigid Illinois hunting Easter eggs 

in snow, or trick-or-treating in the snow, an umbrella 
          protecting my cardboard wings, so now it’s hard 
                      not to see these taut colts as my reward, these yearlings 

testing the pasture, hard as they come toward my Nissan 
          not to turn my head as they pound past, hard 
                      not to angle the mirror to watch them cruise 

down my shoulder, too hard, really, when I await them 
          like crocuses, search for their shadows as others do 
                      the groundhog’s, and suddenly here they are, the boys 

without shirts, how fleet of foot, how cute their buns, 
          I have made it again, it is spring.  
                      Hard to recall just now that these are the torsos 

of my students, or my past or future students, who every year 
          grow one year younger, get one year fewer 
                      of my funny jokes and hip references

to Fletch and Nirvana, which means some year if they catch me
            admiring, they won’t grin grins that make me, busted, 
                      grin back--hard to know a spring will come 

when I’ll have to train my eyes 
          on the dash, the fuel gauge nearing empty, 
                      hard to think of that spring, that 

distant spring, that very very very 
          (please God) distant 
                      spring.

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