PRINTEMPS, PRIMAVERA, SPRING, ETC. . . .

Spring spring a wonderful thing
It comes right after winter.
In the summer sun I'll have my fun
In a place I haven't bin ter.

-My brother.


Birds! Mud!

I'm ready!

Setanta, it dismays me that the wildlife that I once so looked forward to here, has suddenly disappeared. The moorhens which use to dwell in the pond out back, are no longer. Every spring, I could count on at least six or seven soft babies, their red bills predominate, following Mama throughout the tiny, hidden patches of algae and growth. The alligators, small and large, have been relocated. Since we have no actual seasons here, the birds and other beasts were the only signs of new stuff.

Once I saw a gold eagle right outside my kitchen window. Haven't seen one in at least two years. Even my persistent black snake has vanished.

It's snowin' outside. Spring ain't comin' here today.

Saw some crocus leaves pushing through today.
Forecast for tomorrow: snow.
Sheesh.

Trees are budding here, and bulbs are up. More daylight and I can hear the birds again. Had to mow the back yard this weekend. It's all good (well, most of it at least)...

*waitin' for pueo to get in here and rub it in*

Yep, "we" (heh, not I) mowed this weekend, too. Wouldn't you say, D'a that we've been having some great PNW weather?

It makes my heart glad to see flowering trees, I don't know why. The buds of the pink cherry tree we planted for our baby girl have over the weekend started bursting with color. (Every year I say I should take a photo a day to record the changes.) That tree will just get better and better until the pale pink blossoms rain down, probably in a wind storm, but maybe on their own volition. Then its leaf canopy becomes a more sedate and cooling green for the summer. It is a significant year for that tree... that daughter turns 21 next week.

I do love this time of year -- it is a feast for the senses. I've been struck hearing the birdsong at odd moments, it is so fantastically melodic, and the radiant heat from the sun is wunnerful, just wunnerful.

It has indeed been quite decent in these parts, Piffka!

For the last two weeks, I've had glimpses of a pair of red tailed hawks carrying branches (not twigs!) to the top of a nearby white pine. This morning one of the pair swooped down at the bird feeders, stampeded a flock of gold finches towards the window and caught one of the rebound.

I have no way of knowing whether this was for personal comsumption or a little something for mama hawk sitting on the eggs.

Tomorrow we may have 5-7 inches of snow.

How cool, Noddy! I love those raptors even when they eat goldfinches.

Here's a springy bit from the Chorus from 'Atalanta' I found while searching for something else:

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night what wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
and in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

A.C. Swinburne

The people of New England are by nature patient and forbearing, but there are some things which they will not stand. Every year they kill a lot of poets for writing about "Beautiful Spring." These are generally casual visitors, who bring their notions of spring from somewhere else, and cannot, of course, know how the natives feel about spring. And so the first thing they know the opportunity to inquire how they feel has permanently gone by.

~Mark Twain
Speech delivered at the New England Society's Seventy-First Annual Dinner, New York City, Dec. 22, 1876

I heard a report on the radio today that at a refuge south of Toledo, a Bald Eagle nesting pair has successfully hatched an eaglet . . .

and the California condor--

There Will Come Soft Rains
(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And Swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale

for those who drink of mother earth, we sing and see and sense our worth.

I was optimistic. Hung out some laundry yesterday - including Setanta's hot pink t-shirt (inside out, so it wouldn't fade). Went downstairs to check on another load - came back up - it was SNOWING!

hmmmmmm, thought I'd wait for it to stop snowing so I could bring the laundry in. ohhhhh. it started raining. ok. i'll wait til it dries to bring it in. It started snowing again.

It is NOT spring in Tranna

Do you get weather changes within the same day in "Tranna" like we do here in Edmonchuk?

BTW...yer avatar is freakin' me out! *L*

Is the wig too purple? or do i remind you of your dear aunt Clarice?

The last time I wore this wig to work (as a team-building gag), one of the guys was freakin' cuz I looked just like his aunt. Was it the wig or the very heavy dark eyebrows I painted on? We'll never know.

George, thanks for posting that M. Twain quote. He;s right, you know. I snarl when I hear people mention the loveliness of Spring. There is no such season hereabouts. There is a very short season which the locals refer to as 'mud season' or just 'mud time.' It's that period between the last of the snow and the first of the mosquitoes. Lasts maybe six or seven days. Then, suddenly one morning, everything is luch and green and Summer is a-comin' in, lhude sing cuckoo. It's not all that bad in Boston where I now reside. We do actually have something vaguely resembling Spring. It usually occurs around Memorial Day, late May anyway. The lilacs bloom, the crocuses sprout and, on my street anyway, some bedraggled magnolia bushes blossom out. But when I was living about a hundred miles further north (no, not even 100, more like 70 miles) in Cow Hampshire, we read about Spring and heard tales told by travelers. That was as close as we got to it.

When Summer finally comes -- as it will, around June 1st or thereabouts -- I begin praying for Fall. Autumn is the only time of the year that's worth a damn in northern New England. Looking forward to the Fall foliage is what makes the rest of the year bearable.

Hey beth, setanta,seal et. al, MF here.....no Spring here in Maine, saw my first porcupine, usually a harbinger of this lustful season, but alas, the snow flew last night and will again tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.......HUGE storm coming, YIKES !!!!

Memorial Day? I hope you're exaggerating! A long Spring is wonderful.

I'll be missing mid-May here, which is the culmination of our Spring... the Grand Finale, so to speak. Spring starts Friday 10:00pm PT and my daffs are about spent, crocuses are long gone and I'll be planting seeds this week, wishing I'd done it two weeks ago.

... and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y'ronne.

If it makes you feel any better, the PNW is known for wet Junes. Rain is typical and gets annoying if we watch the news and see that everyone else is basking in sun... complaining about the heat.