Monthly Archives: March 2010

You gotta love it

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    What a great month March has been. These past few days have been especially lovely and I’ve tried to be outside as much as possible. I never tire of observing the renewal of the earth each spring, and it’s just plain fun to spend time outdoors without wearing a heavy coat. My sons and daughter have been playing touch football, racing one another around our driveway and just generally enjoying the outdoors.

      During the past few days I’ve seen many flocks of geese flying north. Several flocks of swans also have been enjoying swimming in our fields and foraging in the corn stubble left from last fall’s harvest. So far, the coyotes haven’t scared them away and I’m crossing my fingers that the varmints will continue to leave them alone and the swans will stick around for awhile.

     Another sign of spring are the tulips in front of our house. They already are several inches high and at the rate they’re growing will be out long before early May when they usually start blooming.

      The warm weather has me thinking about planting the garden. The only problem is that I lost my seed order and recycled my Jung catalog. I’ve been hoping that the company would send me another, but it’s getting late to order seeds, so I may have to go online and request  a catalog. If I get busy and send in the order, this may be the year we can get our radishes in early and harvest some that aren’t hot and woody.

They’re back

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     It’s a rite of spring at our farm to have visiits from swans. The fields that surround our farmstead usually have ponds on them and the swans stop for a few days or even weeks, depending on the amount of water and food available.

      I enjoy not only watching the swans, but also listening to them. They are particularly noisy at night and early in the morning. Last night the sound of the swans was competing with the howl of coyotes. The coyotes were pretty quiet and didn’t come around much during the winter, but now that spring is here, they’re more mobile — and noisy. I was hoping last night that they weren’t bothering the swans because I would like to have the beautiful, big, white birds stay around for awhile.

       This morning there was no sign of either the swans or the coyotes. Maybe the swans will return tonight. I hope the coyotes don’t.

Seeing stars

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    I was delighted to see stars in the sky when I went outside this morning. It’s the first morning in several days that the skies haven’t been black. I knew when I saw the twinkling stars that the sky had finally cleared. I also was glad that the temperatures had cooled a bit and slowed the melt. I actually got to walk on solid ground when I fed the horses.

    Apparently other people also are excited that the fog burned off. When I went to the grocery store this morning, two of the workers were standing in front of the window gazing outside. I wasn’t sure what they were looking at until one of them nodded toward the sun and commented on the beautiful sight.

      When I left the office for lunch I encountered several people who either had left their coats open or who were not wearing coats. The sun must be a sign of spring for them. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go coatless, but today’s sunshiny weather certainly does put a spring to my step.

Rain, rain…

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    OK, enough already. I’m tired of being drizzled or rained on every time I go outside. I’m ready for the rain to stop and the sun to shine. Somehow it doesn’t seem as bad slogging through mud and water if the sun is shining.

     Speaking of mud and water, we still have plenty of it at our house and soon there will be a lot more where that came from. Although, I am tired of it already, my sons have a different perspective on it. As we were leaving the farmyard this morning, I saw that the driveway to the garage was nearly under water from a melting snowbank. My sons noticed it, too, and Brendan said, "That’s awesome, Thomas. We have to go sailing in it."

      That wasn’t my reaction to the pond, but given that we can’t do much about it, it’s probably the apprpriate one. Kids have a great way of just enjoying what life gives them instead of fretting about it.

     Given that, I guess I better stop complaining about the weather and be grateful that it’s warm enough to rain, not snow and that the snowpack is dwindling. If I approach it with an attitude like my children, it will be a sunshiny day, cloud cover or not.

Marching through water

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    A couple of weeks ago when I was buying pet food at a local store, I decided to pick up a pair of high rubber boots. I recalled that last year the store was sold out of boots by the time the snow melted and I figured that this time I’d buy them early and be better prepared.

     I’m feeling pretty good about my foresight because I’ll be donning those boots this week. Rains during the past few days have turned part of our farm yard into a pond. I need to get through the water to reach the barn, so the boots will be called into duty. They’ll also come in handy when I feed the horses. Their corral also has  turned into a muddy mess this week.

     Because it’s still early March, I have a feeling it will get wetter before it gets drier. The boots, which reach, just below my knees, will keep my feet dry as I slog through the farm yard doing my chores. Hopefully, the rains will cease so I don’t also have to use the boots when I’m washing clothes in the basement.

Marching through water

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    A couple of weeks ago when I was buying pet food at a local store, I decided to pick up a pair of high rubber boots. I recalled that last year the store was sold out of boots by the time the snow melted and I figured that this time I’d buy them early and be better prepared.

     I’m feeling pretty good about my foresight because I’ll be donning those boots this week. Rains during the past few days have turned part of our farm yard into a pond. I need to get through the water to reach the barn, so the boots will be called into duty. They’ll also come in handy when I feed the horses. Their corral also has  turned into a muddy mess this week.

     Because it’s still early March, I have a feeling it will get wetter before it gets drier. The boots, which reach, just below my knees, will keep my feet dry as I slog through the farm yard doing my chores. Hopefully, the rains will cease so I don’t also have to use the boots when I’m washing clothes in the basement.