March days

There are days when you get impatient with March. You step outside and mutter -- I don't want to work out here today. Your grandkid says -- let's go outside, you say -- let's not. You want the return of the warmer days where the jacket stayed on the hook in the farmhouse. You want progress in the flowering department. 

This is the moment where you have to remind yourself of all that you've gained already. Of the greening of the landscape. Of the fattening of the daffodil heads. Of the plumping of the cherry buds.

Of cheepers laying again. Sometimes in the strangest places!

Too, I think about northern countries that I love -- Scotland comes to mind. Days like this one (cloudy, quite cool, jacket definitely in demand) are commonplace there. People pay them no heed. You don't talk or even think about the weather when it changes on you, usually for the worse, many times in the space of a day.

We have many warm months here, in south central Wisconsin. March just doesn't happen to be one of them.

 

In the meantime, the three chicks are growing. We can't let them spend time outside yet -- that wont happen for at least another month. Still, they do get their adventuring time in the sun room.

And they clamor for it. You can tell that they are bored in their coop. But, it's an unfriendly world that awaits them. We wont let them out until they're ready for the challenge.

Breakfast, with spring flowers inside.

Periods of rain always make the weeds grow faster and sure enough, our weeded flower fields have sprouted stuff that needs to come out. I can't say that I enthusiastically attacked the new invasives, but I do go out with a shovel for at least a little while.

And then I break for a Zoom visit with my Polish friends.

Poland, like many countries in Europe, is experiencing a virus surge. It's the all too familiar pattern: rates go down, you relax too much, rates go way up. My friends are mostly in the age category where vaccines are now becoming available to them and so at least they have some security in the near future. Still, Wisconsin had those astronomical, highest in the land numbers back in the Fall. I know how worrisome it is to live through that.

I have to stop the call to run out and pick up Snowdrop at school. Her teacher insists that the girl clip her outgrowing bangs back. Possibly it's to keep her from constantly touching her face with her hands. She complies, but takes the clips right off the minute she gets in the car.

Now here's a girl who is truly looking forward to even more outdoor time! Starting yesterday!

Inside, she wants to write love notes. She writes some, I write some. I try to be creative, but still, I think we both agree that hers are that much sweeter...

Evening. Primrose calls and I find out all about her school birthday celebration! How good it is to have school kids around you! Last year we were at the beginning of the pandemic and the little girl had only her parents. This year, as she turns three, she will have had others to share in the grand event.

 

 

 

And so ends Friday. This weekday always feels different, even if you no longer work: it's a marker of a week gone by. A good week for us: kids are well, parents are well. And spring -- it's here, in its own blustery way it has made its presence known and we are grateful for it.