Spring!

"No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow."

-Proverb-

As the sun set on winter, I was finally recovered enough from my pneumonia to take a short walk around the block. The snow was melting and I so appreciated that the smell of my first deep breaths in weeks were heavy with the delicious earthiness of dirt, emerging from its long sleep and ready for life, like me.

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. 

And when you've got it, you want--oh, you don't 

quite know what it is you do want, but it just

fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

-Mark Twain-

Sunrise on a promising spring morning in the country is invigorating, especially since I was finally able to run again--the first time this year.

“Country things are the necessary root of our life - 

and that remains true even of a rootless 

and tragically urban civilization. 

To live permanently away from the country 

is a form of slow death.” 

-Esther Meynell-

"The true sound of spring is not the robins returning

but the sound of a bat on a ball"

And the nature of spring baseball is that you can and do play in all sorts of weather--even in the snow.

"Springs greatest joy beyond a doubt

is when it brings the children out."

-Edgar Guest-

"In the spring, 

at the end of the day,

you should smell like dirt."

-Margaret Atwood-

"Our Lord hath written the promises

of the Resurrection

not in books alone

but in every leaf in springtime."

-Martin Luther-

"Spring shows what God can do

with a drab and dirty world"

-Virgil Kraft-

"Can words describe

the fragrance of the

very breath of spring?"

-Neltje Blanchan-

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...

"It is the sun shining on the rain 

and the rain falling on the sunshine...” 

-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden-

My daughter begged me to come to the window to see the rainbow. I'm so glad she did. I never tire of rainbows and always see them as a miracle despite the scientific explanations. This was probably the brightest rainbow I've ever seen, but in thinking on it it's probably because another dark storm was brewing behind it. The darker the storm, the brighter the rainbow--both out my window, and in life.

"I looked out the window,

and what did I see?

Popcorn popping on the apricot tree!"

-Georgia W. Bello-

"The flowers of tomorrow

are in the seeds of today."

So much hope in spring! Here's hoping that no freeze nor hail nor pest will destroy my apricots this year. It's been three years since we harvested any. These blossoms look promising!

"April hath put 

a spirit of youth

in everything."

-William Shakespeare