cautiously, the bear emerges

It feels like the bear is just leaving the cave. I feel a bit like the bear. It's a bit like emerging and sniffing and blinking at the spring sunshine after a long winter.

This year has taken forever to really ignite. In January I had a lingering cold. Then there was the Dog Hospice experience that I believe we handled well, but it was draining and consuming.

Then...immunity down, I caught a cold...

Anyhow, the good news is that signs are pointing toward a late but very sure start now, well into the second quarter of the year. It is supposed to be eighty degrees tomorrow, fifty more than it was this morning. The birds are announcing their presence at dawn and at their evening vespers. When things settle down at night the spring peepers get on with their pronouncements of being and their drive toward life. The trees are putting on their greenery and none too soon. The early spring mud is giving way to grass in need of a trim. Peonies are shooting up where a month ago last year's dead stalks still held sway. Legitimate garden flowers are blooming, as are the unsolicited yard flowers (mostly the yellow dandies). Even inside, the house has filled with the aroma of the lily carried home from the Easter service, and the so-far-unplanted hyacinth in the kitchen, awaiting its spot of honor in the garden.

A trip to the greenhouse is in the offing this weekend, and maybe a tromp down some trail.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the bear has left the cave. Elvis has left the building. Have I ever been this ready?