Spring Emerging

The chickens, dogs, birds, cats, and hermit crabs are all fed and put to bed, and the plants are watered, the dishes done, and my sweetheart has bid me goodnight and gone home, and I've got a moment to blog. But wait! My sister needs me to brush bleach on her roots... okay, I'm coming!

Later... I'm back. She's been begging me for days to help do her hair. Finally I had a spare moment. But no spare moments to blog! I'm sort of taking care of the homestead while my parents are in Idaho, where my other sister is having a baby. But not just that. I'm also here to see my fiance, plan my wedding, and enjoy some free time. Mostly I've just been walking around in a lovesick daze, too blissed out to notice anything around me. Well, no, that's not quite true. I've been noticing the budding and blossoming trees, the electric yellow of the forsythias, the North Carolina farmland turning from red clay mud to lush green grass and clover. Spreading a blanket under the tree in the yard here at home, I spent a few leisurely hours contemplating the moss, the musical sound of tree frogs, and bees emerging from winter hives.

C and I spent Saturday doing some spring cleaning at his house, with a nice long break to nap in the garden amidst pansies and narcissus, the March sun strong and full of promise. I'm not exactly looking forward to summertime in the South, but spring time is sure nice. The breezes are redolent of flowering plum and pear trees, and you never know from one moment to the next if you'll need a sweater or shorts, mud boots or sandals. C showed me some trails today in the woods where he used to go running a lot. There we saw a stream where there used to be a mill, and the beautiful sandy and rocky banks were edged with soft green grasses, latent vines, and trees on the verge of bursting into leaf. The forests here are still ash-gray and silent, but little by little there are tiny white flowers popping up and almost undetectable leaf buds, insects emerging from their mysterious places, and birds singing the anthem of spring all around. I know it happens every year, but the miraculousness of spring never fails to amaze me.

We also spotted a coyote loping along an old railroad track in the woods today! That is definitely not something I'd see in Harlem, although some of the characters in my neighborhood can seem pretty similar. Anyway, it's nice to be back amongst nature, and here on the "farm" surrounded by the Carolina countryside in all her delicate springtime lace and finery, with family around and a good man at my side, it seems as if there is no better place in all the world to be.