Spring has sprung . . . again!

We have had some cold, wet weather this week, after temperatures in the 70s on Saturday.
T.S. Eliot begins his epic poem "The Waste Land" with this:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

And Ernest Hemingway had this to say about fickle spring:

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

And indeed, this is how I have felt some of these recent frosty days.
Especially since the boys and I have been sick so much lately.
But things are warming up again. Again, I have opened the windows and let the air revisit our house, closed off to the cold these past few days. And outside today, the sunshine reaching down to caress this part of the earth, my part, I was drunken with the smell of warmth.
We took advantage of the beautiful weather we had on Saturday and worked in the yard and garden most of the day.
We got some things planted in the ground -- snap peas, peas, spinach, carrots -- and I finished starting the indoor seeds. Some of them have sprouted already, and are growing and growing. It is fascinating to watch them grow. Sometimes, you look at them, and a few hours later, they have grown some more. It is amazing. The boys are having a great time seeing the progress and anticipating the day they will be ready to go into their neat rows in the dirt.

Joe built a raised box for the strawberries, which we will plant Friday or Saturday. We have 50 plants. Twenty-five Ozark beauties and 25 Robinsons.
We tilled up an additional garden area which will hold a variety of tomatoes and peppers and began clearing an area for the plants that need to go in mounds.
It is a lot of work, this gardening stuff. But it is so satisfying, such fulfilling work. At the end of the day, I feel good. Really, really good about the work I have accomplished in the garden.
Author Margaret Atwood said, "In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." I could not agree more.
Here are some other things that have been happening.
Monday night, we had the pleasure of having some friends drop by and spend the evening with us.
At one point in the evening, we all migrated into the living room, and Daniel, who had excitedly been trying to tell us something for several minutes which none of us were understanding, was pointing out the window, saying "Sun-clouds! Sun-clouds!"
Sure enough, I looked out the window where he was pointing, and this is what he saw . . .
Sun-clouds.
How can you not love this . . . these glimpses into first encounters with words, watching these rituals of naming things with words he knows and seeing him want to learn, to know more. It amazes me. It has amazed me with each of my boys -- the way they would learn words, and say them; what they would call things, name things. How they would put their world together with words, and take it apart, and become communicators, following a great tradition of language.
And this is what happened when I asked him to smile for the camera. A ham, just like his brothers!
Last night we had some other friends over to discuss putting a chicken coop in, and getting some chickens. I am so excited about the prospect of fresh eggs and non-hormone injected meat. I think it will be a fun learning experience for the boys and a good family project and I am looking forward to the day that our chickens are a reality.
Tomorrow is Josiah's 7th birthday. I can't believe it. Time goes by so fast. It seems it is racing away from us, racing into tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
I remember the day Josiah was born like it was yesterday.
You can read about the story of his birth and see how we celebrated last year here.
Today, he has been watching . . .
that's right, The Karate Kid.
And right here, in this very room, he has become Daniel LaRusso.
Dream big, little man. Dream big.