spring

I have had a beautiful weekend on the farm. By chance good weather coincided with my editor quitting her job and the company hasn’t replaced her yet. We are in the middle of author review on my book so that isn’t good, but I had the weekend to just relax and enjoy the weather- well not relax really- I worked on my gardens. Today is a little overcast and cooler than yesterday, but the sun peaks out from time to time and it isn’t that bad. I worked a bit outside and did some overdue house cleaning.

The daffodils are blooming here in Michigan. Its been a long, slow spring and we are supposed to get more cold weather soon. But this beautiful weather spell the last few days helped. The frogs have been really noisy, but I have yet to see a snake. I see plenty of buzzards but haven’t seen a bluebird or my orioles or hummingbirds. I bought grape jelly for the orioles at the store but I hope the hummers are smart and stay south a bit longer.

The birds are nesting though. I watched a grackle picking up huge mouthfuls of dried weeds and try to fly off with them. The little sparrows were getting horse hair from where the horses had rubbed on the fence. The squirrels are probably nesting too. The buggers are eating the buds on the trees right now. I know they are hungry this time of year but they are so destructive.

Its dry enough the farmers are working in the fields. In fact we could use a little rain. I want the grass to grow well in the pasture- it seems to have slowed down. Charlie and Lily seem to be grazing ok, although I have been throwing in a flake of hay from time to time. Charlie is getting to be a real handful. He really needs to be gelded, although that will have to wait until my next advance check now. The hens are getting out nearly every day and getting some of their own food. The turkeys have quit laying for a while and it’s comical to see them outside taking dust baths.

My birthday was this week and I have been thinking about age and its consequences. My dad turns 80 this year. I can’t believe I am this old, how quickly time flies. It seems like yesterday when I was out helping my grandmother in her yard, going to the swamp after school, riding my bike. Then I had that little house in the city, and this time of year I would have been getting my garden ready and dreading working long hours at the Kmart garden shop. Then Steve and I working on that same yard, putting in a pond, going to spring bird shows with our birds. And even the times when we first moved to the country we would be out there chasing steers or pigs probably and making those long commutes back and forth to our city jobs, wasting hours of time each day.

I think of my son graduating, the grandbabies I sat in the room and watched being born and the ones I didn’t get to watch toddling about the farm. I think of family reunions and weddings and funerals. It seems I have had several different lives, different eras of time and different me’s . Ah life, it is so grand and goes so fast. I wonder what’s ahead?