Thursday, or Thereabouts - May 3, 2018

image courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/sandraboynton/

The sudden arrival of warm, even hot temperatures (27°C; 81°F) has put a rush on all things outside my door. The birds are rushing to nest. The plants and trees are rushing to bud. The insects are rushing just to annoy me. There is no time to dance around the Maypole this year.

Trying - and very trying...

In years' past, the yard clean up was done by now and the lawnmower was tuned and ready to make the first cut of the season. Baskets of begonias ringed the deck and families of pansies dressed up the rock garden. This year it all looks somewhat neglected. A bedraggled landscape strewn with twigs, pinecones, and other assorted detritus, lies in mute testimony to a late Spring. There was snow on the ground just this past Sunday morning!

Winter's debris field

BUT...
...what a joy it is to be outside without coat, boots, mitts, and tuques! Rake in hand I set myself to work. It's pretty mindless stuff; pulling debris from the lawn into piles of beige-brown twigs, leaves, and grass. It's slow work - there is no such thing a quick rake, especially when one has as much lawn as I do. I love being outdoors. I truly do enjoy the mindless time, trolling through the grey matter of my brain, solving all the world's problems and even a few of my own, while the rake does something similar for the lawn.

The rhubarb is coming on gangbusters!

I found these persistent blooms in the forest Wednesday morning.

The snow tires on the cars are off, the snow shovel has been put away, the snow blower and lawn mower have traded priority spots in the shed. Tomorrow I'll head on over to the garden centre for the begonias and pansies.

Best of all, my chair is out!

It's bloomin' Spring -

a grand feast of colour, fragrance, and song is about to reveal herself.

©2018 April Hoeller